This is the main point I have a problem with. 'take whatever action is required'. Could we be given examples? Clearly, naming particular cases isn't allowed, but hypothetically speaking? The Help Centre clearly states that one members word cannot be taken over another and when a complaint is such, no action can be taken. This goes with what hughsy was saying about the staff. They are his personal opinions of them and action cannot be taken over a personal opinion. Anything offensive or against site rules, quite rightly, should be done through the Send Complaint feature. So what exactly do you recommend we use Contact Us for? We can send copies of chat logs already and anything else is just one members word against another. Isn't that right? So by the statement in the Help Centre, no action can be taken against anything said in Contact Us?

And I disagree with your last point, there being nothing to discuss. Clearly there is. I'm not posting this to annoy anyone but because there are clearly people on this game that want answers to their questions, not the same rule quoted a million times. Is Contact Us there just because it has to be, serving no real purpose?

I'd also thank anyone not to turn this into a 'all the moderators are rubbish' sort of thread. That is not what it is intended to be.

What you have done is to focus only on one aspect of the use of 'contact us' (CU from now on), that being as to complain about another member. As you said, 'send complaint' covers that area much better as the actual chat log is sent in.

If you look when you go to CU, the drop down list at the top offers you the following options:

Technical Problem
Banning Enquiry
Advertising Enquiry
Other

Firstly it is important to note that "complain about another member" is not one of the options here.

Clearly for the 3 specified areas listed, the issue of "one members word against another" is not one that is going to crop up. I personally have used CU to ask about a technical problem (that being that my crosshair was bigger than my cursor) and got very helpful advice back, which coupled with a thread that was created around the same time solved my problem. I hope you can see here that CU does have its uses when it isn't seen as a method for complaining about other members.

If I can now address the problem of complaining about other members, the general reply is either "we cannot take one members word over another" and/or "we cannot accept screenshots as evidence", although the latter is relatively new as far as I know. While this may mean that no immediate action is taken, it doesn't mean that things aren't noted down anywhere. Say, for example, you believe a banned member is playing on a 2nd account to get round their ban and there are no moderators online. You could use "Other" on CU and say that you believe that member X is banned member Y, and then admin would be able to look into it. They may not be able to feed back to you on this as that would be breaking confidentiality rules, but it doesn't mean they won't look at it.

I hope that is of some use.

Thanks, yes that is of some use and I hope the people reading this that think Contact Us is pointless see it as such as well. I'd like to make a suggestion to those who think the skills of the moderating team are lacking. You may use the Send Complaint feature to send a copy of the chat log, but, seeing as the chat itself may not be offensive, also fill out a CU form on why you sent the complaint? Nothing gets improved without constructive criticism.

Also, speaking as a former moderator, when Spinner says all actions of the staff team are logged, he isn't lying. Any complaint that is sent is logged against the offenders profile for all staff members to see along with a short comment from the Staff member who logged it.

Also, I'd like to ask a question of the staff team regarding the chosen language for the game. English is one of the most popular languages around the world, one of the most widely used. As such, the majority of members on this website speak it and it may be the only language that the majority of the staff speak. When members speak a language that isn't English, staff aren't able to understand it and therefore aren't able to take action on anything offensive. How difficult is it for an auto-translator to be installed on the game? Choose a default language in the options, everything said gets translated as closely as possible into that language.

I think on your first point that possibly more options are needed when sending a complaint? There are only 4 at the moment and there are areas that personally I would say aren't covered. The issue with filling in a form, as it were, is the time that it takes, and if the player logs out before the form is completed then it could cause problems and mean that some things that need reporting don't get reported. More options on the drop down list would help the complaint be more specific while keeping the time taken very low.

On the language, I have never seen an auto-translator but the problem with many online translators eg babelfish is that they aren't very good, and don't put grammar across very well or mistranslate things. This could lead to issues if a member has soemthing perfectly innocent translated into something that could be quite offensive and gets booted for it. I appreciate however that this could happen anyway with someone with poor English who means well but puts their point across wrong. The difference however, is that if I see that clearly English is a 2nd/3rd/... language for a member, I can read what they say and try and work out if it looks like it is meant to be offensive or not before taking any action. If it is translated however, I don't know what it was they actually originally said so is harder to deduce intent.

In response to those who have asked why other languages aren't allowed in killer, private rooms etc, I would make 2 points:

1. Say 2 Russian members, to pick a random country, are playing in a private room and one is offensive to the other in Russian, then if they try to send complaint then unless an admin happens to speak Russian, it causes problems as they wouldn't know what was actually said.

2. In games like killer, as I think I saw this brought up earlier, then everyone in that room has to understand what is being said so that someone can't be offensive without others knowing.

I have been asked about people who have no English at all, how is this fair on them? My reply to this is the same as always... By playing you state that you understand and accept the terms that can be found at the bottom of the main page. If you cannot speak any English, then you cannot understand these terms, and so funky is not liable for any disadvantage to you.

I mean send the complaint as normal but also use Contact Us to let the admin that receives know why its been sent. I understand the complications with having to fill out a long form under send complaint which is why I believe the function of it at the moment is good, but like you say, could use more options.

The reason I suggest using Contact Us alongside it, particularly when complaining about staff members is that the majority of staff would abide by the rules while on the game, therefore wouldn't be caught out swearing or anything like that (by anyone other than their friends, I mean). Something like 'I sent the Chat log regarding adam_147 (using your name because you're the only one to reply so far ) because I felt his tactics with the situation were heavy handed and personally found them offensive. The situation could have been handled much better if he had done this'.

I understand that a lot of members don't take this site particularly seriously so wouldn't take the time to do something like that, but people such as hughsy89 do care and clearly want to see the site improve.

Also, I wouldn't dispute the fact that the site's required language is English as clearly, the majority of people do speak it on here and is the primary language among moderators. I mean, if I was to call someone a harami, how many people on here would know what it means without using a translator?

Oh i see what you mean now. That could work yes. However I would add to that that if you think a moderator/admin could have handled a situation differently then offline messaging them could clear a lot up.

Obviously staff want to avoid getting into discussions about moderating enquiries on the forums, because that is not the place for them. Speaking purely for myself, as I don't know how other mods feel about this, but if for example I have removed a post of yours and you don't agree, then simply offline messaging me asking why, and I mean asking nicely, then I will always explain why (if it doesnt break confidentiality rules). There is a big difference however between:

"Hi adam, you removed a post of mine in the forum. Just wondering what it was that made you remove it as I didn't think anything was wrong with it. Thanks"

and

"Why did you remove my post? You are a joke and utterly useless and you are so power mad that you don't have a clue what you are doing and your head can clearly no longer fit through the door of the members bar and this is clearly trying to single me out and abuse me"

(please note, neither of the above are genuine messages that I have received).

If I explain and you still don't agree then by all means use contact us, but often either the moderator has mis-understood something or the member hasn't realised what they have said (or a mixture of both).

As I said before, simply asking can clear up at least 80% of problems. If you ask me anything in a polite manner, I will always reply explaining things in a polite manner as well such as is expected in a respectful exchange between staff and members!

stop moaning lol

can someone narrow all that down lol, i dont fancy reading a story

No, read the story!

he cant hes diklixic hahahahhaa

_nut_case_ adam_147

is that another word for lazy

Are you kidding me? Is that what this thread is gonna boil down to? Pure laziness? Why even bother commenting if you're gonna contribute to the discussion?

And adam, I agree with you. Simply asking the question in a polite manner to a staff member would no doubt solve 90% of the problems hughsy and other members have with the staff team. The number of people who can hold a discussion on ways to improve many aspects of this site seem to be a minority however the fact that a staff member is posting here offering solutions and advice on a few issues is reassuring as it shows some do care about the volunteer basis job they're doing.

And ang_k, stop moaning? Thats the only reply you could give to this thread? Perhaps if no one 'moaned' in the first place, things wouldn't get improved. This thread wasn't intended as a moan but more as something to get a few questions answered and I feel that Adam has answered one of them quite while; that being the use of the Contact Us feature..

Only one of them? Have I missed one lol???

Haha yeah, the other being the chosen language of the site and how to improve the experience around that. Keep up mate

was winding adam up get urself a sence of humour

both make good points, I'm not going to bother as I can't control my fingers and this isn't about shouting (typing in big boy letters), I was a little rude this morning I admin but i feel everything I said was true and justified, and also I was right about the admin response haha

shhhhhhhhhhhhh

There is one thing that I would like to add to Adam's comments regarding the spoken language on the site.

Whilst I have nothing against e.g. 2 German (Russian etc) speakers using their native tongue in a private room, I do feel that out of courtesy, and also to respect site rules, English has to remain the common language in more public rooms (Killer) or the bar.

I have often heard the lament "he can't speak English" when I have warned for not using English. To be fair, a certain level of English is required simply to sign up and register your account / to understand what you are doing.

Lots of members speak more than 1 language, I am sure. However, until such as time as there is an auto-translator, or sufficient staff with knowledge of multiple languages who can be present at all hours (not likely), English must prevail.

Having said all that, if any Russian speakers would like to apply to join the staff ..... lol

Everythings been covered pretty well here, and its all really just common sense.

I was a bit baffled by the confusion over "contact us" as thats what it is, plain and simple, a way for people to contact the site with any issues not covered elsewhere.

One of the signs the complaints system works very well is that it is extremely rare we recieve any complaints via contact us.