Has the quality of the forums dropped?

@Karch more mods isnt needed. More mods who login and do reports is whats needed. I saw VoteDC on twitter yesterday talking to Xbox Support because a thread had been up for 7 hours that was a clear violation of the forum rules. It shouldnt take that long
for anyone to take a thread down. In 7 hours that meant not one mod logged in and checked reports. Thats bad. Also on a side note, there are no benefits to being a mod. When free Xbox Ones were given out only mods that got one were MVPs like Scratch and Deacon.
They get nothing except for hate.

 

I never metioned a ban, for real vile behaviour yes but otherwise i dont see the point in it, what they can do is keep an eye on them, especialy during times of their peak usage, this way they can seee where they have posted, check it and if its trolling
delete it, trolls get bored if many hours of their work is regually lost, its away of getting them to stop or leave entirely, im sorry if my use of the term out made you think ban and can understand why u thought that. I see said baiters and trolls in some
threads sharing great ideas so much so that if they took a step back they would see that they can add something to a forum that will get them more respect than trolling ever would. So banning them would not be a good move, making them post decent stuff not
hate is what id like to see. Fast mod responce and thread or post deletion would be cool, also guys remember to help them by reporting dodgey posts.

 

Didn't know about the free Xbox One thing but not the issue. Ill concede more mods aren't necessary but it would be slightly beneficial. We have countless sectionals, sub-sections, and even the support sectionals which are a mess of their own. I say add
at least 4 mods by the end of the year. Though, yes, the mods here are vastly unappreciated. Lets have a mod appreciation day (or is that already something that I know nothing of?).

 

Pretty much this. The game forums are mostly dead these days, even the popular games. Back before the redesign you would struggle to keep a thread on page one of a game forum!

Moderators shouldn't need incentive to moderate. That defeats the purpose of a moderator if they require a carrot on a stick to do the task that they volunteer to do.

The issue is more in how administration handles their moderation staff than anything else. They don't interact with the community they moderate because they're kept on a tight leash where one foot wrong in Microsoft's eyes sees them removed from service
regardless of what they have actually done for this community.

And Cloud is only a recent example of this. There have been several others whom I could easily name.

This is not how a community should be run, or watched over.

Microsoft have proven time and time again that they don't care about the Xbox.com community. Their actions clearly show they're not interested in investing the time to turn this community around and bring it back to what it once was. A few new forum features
on an already broken forum without fixing the things that are broken really just doesn't instil any further faith in that regard.

And then they wonder why half the forum has descended into chaos.

 

The mods don't have it as easy as 90% of the community thinks. There is a ton of hate, PMs and stalking that is directed their way. The fact is they have a few more powers on the forums than a normal user but they get all the crap when something goes wrong.
They are not admins but some treat them like the site (operation) issues are their fault.

 

When you become part of the system you become part of the problem. If you cannot handle being put on a pedestal, don't put yourself up there.

 

Which leads back to what I said.... Mod appreciation day. Lets hear it.

 

I don't think any of them are on a pedestal unless the users put them there. I did that job for just shy of 2 years. It's not as easy or as fun as most think. To be honest I enjoy gaming and the community again now that I am not moderating here.

 

Who said, or even thought, it was supposed to be easy or fun? I think most here are well aware it is the exact opposite.

Moderators are members of staff who are looked up to for guidance and support. I would say that is a pedestal that a moderator volunteers to place themselves upon. Unfortunately there are aspects of the work that is not nice, but that's no different from
any other forum.

 

@Deacon, I am always lurking in the shadows. I am just post where I see fit. It used to be my posts would end up shutting down a thread for some odd reason.



There is no need for the supposed baiting and such. I think the forum landscape has changed when a lot of people went away for various reasons. Nowadays, you may have too many people used to change.org and complaining on other
sites to get stuff changed. They don't realize change take time around these parts. Also, it seems many gamers have that "if it doesn't suit me, then @##@ everyone else's feelings.

This thread was ok until the last two pages. People exchanging ideas civil like and appreciating others opinions. It kind of felt like the good old days, unless you were in the NCAA threads during football season.

 

Yea..collapsed and the other one kinda detracted from this, but overall it has been rather pleasant.

 

Well a suggestion from me would be more developer interaction. Perhaps run the odd thread every now and then (a bit like a Reddit AMA) where you get a development team to answer questions asked by the community.

Might get a bit silly every now and then but that's what moderators are for. Would be fun and would help bring people together some more if done on a regular basis. Give people stuff to talk about and put a bit more focus games as well.

 

As I see it moderator 'hate' comes from the fact they are the visible face of authority on the forum.

They likely aren't the ones who set the rules and they certainly don't maintain the forum software, yet these volunteers are the only ones regular users get to talk to. Therefore they are also the first ones that people complain to.

No offence meant to Deacon but why is he the one in here asking how to improve the community? Shouldn't it be Microsoft staff who should be asking those questions?

I get the impression from reading this thread that interaction with folk from Microsoft is a rare thing on this forum.

 

^^Well the only MS staff that comes here is the PET and the Support Agents. Mods report to the SAs so him asking for feedback is so he can pass it along to them. Cloud did the same thing before he was let go.

 

I've never seen a PET or support agent outside of the support forums. As far as Microsoft employees coming to general discussion or games discussion, to say that it's rare would imply that it happens once in a while.