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[xSpirit]

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[Calvary]

Hello!

First off, I would like to say thank you for bringing this to attention. However, I plan to inform you of several different points, as I feel it is important to talk about.

We encourage users, especially ones like yourself or even non-english speakers to report happenings of bullying. A fun fact about staff, is we come from all over. We speak many different languages, and we actually have to persistently deal with those who use language as a barrier for wrong doings.

I am a native english speaker, but I actually am fluent in French. I know a lot of our staff can speak a second language or third language, which is helpful to have. Even then, if we don't speak a certain language, we encourage users who don't speak english to still report happenings, as no matter what language you speak, you are still apart of the community. If we can't speak that language, we often try and get help using a translation app, or perhaps another staff member may know the language.

Always report things that are happening, even if you don't speak English. There are many staff here to help you. From Spanish, to French, to German, Swedish, Welsh, etc. There are a lot of languages we are well versed at speaking, and if we can't, we try our best to seek out alternatives to break that barrier down.

Perhaps we can implement something on the staff page that shows what languages we speak, as I know someone brought this up already. It may help members have an easier time speaking to someone.

[Warriorstrike]

You bring up a good point, Spirit. I'll try to add on to what Calvary has said above with a few of my own thoughts. c:

This concept has been suggested in the past, but there are a few reasons why it might not work out in the way that it appears. Bringing in new staff with the ability to understand other languages is very valuable, but the basis of modding users simply because they speak a different language is not necessarily the best option if you want the people on the staff to do their job well. While special traits (such as the ability to make maps well, and in this case, speak a non-English tongue) have their advantages, those advantages aren't what make a good moderator. Moderators should be trusted individuals, and in order for staff to discern whether or not someone might be a potential option for a staffing position, it's very important that they are able to connect well with that person (and this does often times mean the ability to speak English-- this is normal, as the majority of those playing Feral Heart have English as a language under their belt). Then, you must be able to overview the moderator who is supposed to be monitoring the other languages to ensure that they are taking action when it is appropriate, and this requires the ability to understand the language (or at least to translate it in some way). Selecting people simply because they speak a language does not ensure that the game will be moderated well.

An important distinction to make is that the English-speaking users are not devoid of their share of the very same matters of which you have outlined are occupied by the non-English speaking users. Something that remains true for all languages is that there will always be people who break the rules, and there will always be those who are mistreated-- our intention is to help minimize that as much as possible and to create an enjoyable environment in which people can explore their imaginations and simply have fun.

All of this is setting aside the fact that we have staff currently who do speak other languages, as mentioned above. It's an excellent ability to have a few languages to speak, and I agree that it helps to cover a portion of the chat that is a bit more tricky to monitor, but there are reasons why specifically modding people due to language may not be as effective as it sounds. You are encouraged to send in a report when you notice rules being broken in another language, though, as we do receive these reports and will find ways to translate them. Reports are a large part of what helps us moderate the game, and by your sending one in, it is of great value to us. <3

I'll also move this over to the Game Opinions & Ideas board, as I believe this better suits a board geared toward a suggestion.~

[LonesomeRider]

I agree with Calvary and Warriorstrike here, but I'll post this as well.

It is good to have brought this up, as very few tend to address how things like these work within the game and forum. Calvary did mention many of us are bilingual, and can as well use translating apps. I, myself, am a native English speaker, though I am learning Spanish, Danish, and German on the side (as well as ASL, but this would require face-to-face and it's easier to type through the internet within a game setup like this).

Our current staff spread across North America and Europe, where the most of our playerbase tends to come from. This does work out well for some languages within Europe are similar so deciphering isn't the hardest, alongside using translators as I mentioned, and Calvary mentioned as well. Warriorstrike's points tie into Calvary's and mine well.

We do encourage people to report to us so that we can keep the game safe and friendly, as you mentioned. One thing to be mentioned is the general socialization that effects how things run. Addressing peers has changed since the 1.15 update, and this plays off heavily to where some have mentioned to me they sometimes feel uncomfortable to report wrongdoings of other members, for fear of being targeted. We want the community to tell us if something bad is happening, and we assure you we try our best to get past language barriers to help out those who live in different countries and are non-English speakers. Bringing in specific moderators for certain languages would be a heavy hassle, and overturn the current moderation, and things seem to work out well as it is.

Thank you, again, for bringing this up. It's delighting to see someone who wants to speak up on things like this, for even the English-speaker side has its flaws no matter what, and our job is to make things work well and allow people to play happily.

[Jango_Fett]

i remember there being an issue years ago of the russian playerbase being uh... rather not grandmother friendly in their discussions, but because no russian speakers were online, the problem wasn't found out until a lot later.

foreign playerbases do also eventually move on, especially if they feel alienated.
hungarian is also not a very wide-spread language[it's about on the same level of widespread as estonian, polish, swahili or... whatever it is they use in bulgaria], so finding mods that speak the language without a translator handy is difficult. especially since copy pasting messages is really not easy to do on the game.

so, yeah. the main big top ten or fifteen languages are covered by the staff team very well. but i personally, as a player[and someone who's been mostly apart of european/a single south african communities] don't think that this specific issue can or will be solved anytime soon.

but hey if someone that speaks hungarian well earns a mod spot, maybe that'll change ya'know?

[Kahbloom]

This is so interesting! Before reading this thread, I had no idea that we had so many different languages spoken within the staff team! That's neat.

I also never really considered what it must be like for other languages that aren't covered by the staffers.
That's kind of funny, to be honest. People acting bad but no one can really understand, LOL. Aw.
Well, thank you for bringing an issue to the attention of everyone! Never would have really thought much on it otherwise.

I agree with you about the bullying part, but unfortunately, there will always be bullies, ya know? ):
Unless you report it to a moderator directly, there's always going to be people who slip through the cracks.
It's best to just try to report them, ignore them & have fun. Don't let strangers on the internet drag ya down! (:
Of course, that's not to say that this isn't worth mentioning. Of course it is! & I'm grateful that you did. :{D
You brought attention to a problem! That's awesome.