Moderation Changes
Posted by Mat on 12 Sep 2016, 11:24 pm
Our moderation tactics have been changed in response to player feedback. Many of you have come to us with concerns about bullying and attacks in the forums, and our new infraction system is our solution to that problem. From this point forward, moderators will be issuing infractions for behavior that violates our Site Rules, and an accumulation of infraction points will result in impartial site bans.
We need your help here more than ever in reporting behavior that is inconsistent with our rules. We want the game to be fun and relaxing to play, and if you witness any behavior that bullies or attacks another player on the forums, we encourage you to report it. In the past we had a very lenient system of flags and warnings, but our new system will ensure that rule-breaking behavior is swiftly and fairly punished.
Prior behavior has been expunged from every player's record (with the exception of existing bans). If you had a warning or a flag on your account, you are starting clean with a fresh record.
In addition, our rules have been updated with the following changes:
- We no longer forbid discussion of alcohol or drugs on Furvilla. However, players may not encourage or discuss the illegal or underage use of these substances in their discussions. They may also not solicit any drugs or alcohol on Furvilla. We have decided to relax this rule because Furvilla is not a children's website, it is a website that caters to a general furry audience without the sexual content common on furry websites.
- Players are now permitted to have off-topic discussions in the chatrooms.
- Clarifications have been made regarding off-site trade right now during beta, and after beta.
- We do not allow players to post threads stating they want to harm themselves or commit suicide.
- Players may not beg or severely lowball others.
- Players may not be vulgar, overly aggressive or abusive toward staff members in their communications.
In addition, we wanted to share some information about our future plans: we are in the process of implementing two major features, the plush collection feature and the indoor decoration feature. The majority of our focus will be toward these two features as they will both be major sinks for items and currency in the economy. In addition, one of our programmers is working on mini-games, per the suggestion of many players.
We would also like to announce that our official opening date is scheduled for December 1, 2016!
Have a nice day!
BCPhantom
I really feel you're taking the new infraction system FAR too seriously and literally. We aren't doing this to attack new players. Small things happen. And derailment of a thread isn't gradual subject change. It goes for people that like to go into a thread and directly try to derail it by talking about something that has NOTHING to do with the topic, or to start discourse within the thread. When you create an account, it is the player's responsibility to read the rules and follow them. The small infractions go away within time, so it's not like they're permanent as long as people begin to follow the rules.
As far as duplicate topics go, it means if the same person makes several of the same topic in different forums or even the same forum as a type of spam or to get it seen quicker/more often. Two people accidentally posting the same topic is not an infraction.
The next question is, what happened to the pet buffs? I thought that was going to be the next new feature based on your post in the forums.
Argent
I'm pretty sure this goes for more like, if someone is selling something for 2k, and someone begs for the person to either just give it to them or sell it for something like, 100.
Also, the site rules are listed under Terms of Service and Site rules located at the bottom of the page.
The copyright rules goes towards Painties, and always has. You cannot try to submit a Paintie that is designed from a copyrighted character. That didn't change. You also can't claim something copyrighted as your own if it doesn't belong to you.
What does "lowball" mean in the context of "Players may not beg or severely lowball others."?
Does this mean that if the low price for an item in the stall is (say) 1000 FC, it's an offense to put one up for 100 FC?
Mitara
Until Beta is over, we are not allowing off-site trading, as it is still possible that someone could find a game breaking glitch that would cause us to reset a part of the game, and we will not be replacing items lost if that happens.
Also that copyright rule
what does that mean? Are you not allowed to even post painties based on copywritten characters that you have no intention of uploading, but did for fun? Are you not allowed to post screenshots of tv shows? Are you not allowed to have a copywritten character in your avatar? Things like this should be really clarified as it leaves the rule open to interpretation at the discretion of individual mods.
Can i get an EPUB version of the rules? they are too long for me to read on my shitty display id like to load them on my kindle and read them there
Oh darn, I saw the picture and assumed the new rodents had become available, but alas, not yet *waits patiently for the adorable chinchilla"
I don't know how the plushies are going to work, but I'm very excited for them!
December 1st seems like a good date to open the site. I know a bunch of people eagerly waiting to join up. I'm still enjoying the game a lot but it'll be nice to have new players to keep things interesting and liven it up a bit.
Honestly I think the infraction system is TOO harsh and the rules are still very much unclear. Backseat moderation...people may genuinely be unfamiliar with the rules. Why is telling someone the rules a warnable offense? I'd rather someone tell me what rule I'm breaking so I can FIX it, than get an auto ban for an innocent mistake.
The duplicate threads thing. I can understand not wanting a user posting the same thread in multiple areas of the site, but seeing as how there is no search function of the forums, how is someone going to know if a thread already exists? What happens if two users post a thread about cats (random example) at the same time unknowingly? Do both of them get warned for duplicate topics?
Subject derailment is entirely subjective. discussions gradually change over time. You cant stop it from happening.
Honestly I feel like depending on the offense, a warning should be given to the user, rather than an infraction point. Because some of these could honestly be mistakes and it's not fair to ban someone for making an honest mistake. And some of the rules are subjective in nature. How do you enforce something thats entirely subjective? Like the lowball rule?