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71
Introduction / Re: it me, ya boi
« on: April 27, 2021, 11:09:31 pm »
Jackkdaw old friend<3 Welcome back!
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72
Site/Forum Help / Re: Old Account?
« on: April 27, 2021, 05:22:23 pm »
Not seeing the account pop up... if you'd like, feel free to pm me with the email you used for the account and I'll see if any accounts have it in use
73
Game Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Bring Back The Changing Banner!
« on: April 26, 2021, 02:59:49 am »
Yesss I've missed this feature so much<3 We definitely need to have the banner back on the forum page too!
74
Praise / Re: Appreciation and some memories with the staff!
« on: April 19, 2021, 08:42:52 pm »
You're very sweet Security<3 Thank you for such a thoughtful post and I'm sure the others will appreciate it too!
75
Game Help / Re: Game turns black?
« on: April 19, 2021, 02:02:00 am »
You should have Direct3D9 available if you go into options > video > rendering subsystem, then restart your game. Or is it a case that your computer cannot support using Direct3D9? =0[/color[
76
Forum Discussion / Re: We Need Leadership
« on: April 19, 2021, 01:56:09 am »I don't have much to say as the other staffers have stated/explained a lot of things very well. There are a few things I'd like to clear up, howeverThere have been claims of wrongful bans being handed out, as well as in-game kicks, etc. and there was even plenty of pages of evidence to prove this, Tumblr/deviantArt being the most popular. Of course, these situations were denied & ignored.
Users have claimed to be banned for "no reason" from the start of the game. Staff always save screenshot evidence whenever a user is punished for breaking rules. We encourage users to contact us to clarify any questions they may have. However, many players never contact us and go straight to telling their friends or mention it on their dA, Tumblr, etc. These posts rarely include legitimate evidence. The reason why staff don't respond to them is due to our punishment policy: we do not share any information with anyone except privately with the affected player. We want to help our players, but it is not our responsibility to scour the internet for these claims and explain the reasoning to the user. Not only is it impossible to find every single one, but the player should have received their reasoning as they got booted from the game to begin with. If a player has questions, our inboxes are always open and we are happy to assist
These policies have been in effect since the beginning of the game and have been enforced until today, and will continue to be enforced
This is because there have been wrongful punishments handed out & this has been an ongoing issue for several years.
...
It's not the policies being enforced that's the problem.
The point I was trying to make with stating our policies is that behind every punishment, staff have screenshot evidence to back it up. If a user approaches us stating their ban is wrongfully placed, we are able to show them their actions that led to the ban. Not only that, but users rarely provide legitimate evidence to support their claims. It is for these reasons cases are closed. Unless a user supplies sufficient evidence, their punishment will remain in place as we cannot go off of word of mouth or otherwise illegitimate evidence alone
You were on the staff team for a very short portion of FH's history -- you cannot verify your claim that this has been happening for a long time. I can assure you cases of wrongfully placed bans are very rare. You're exaggerating this to look like a bigger issue than it really is, or has been
If our policies aren't the problem, I encourage you to tell us what it is
When I talk about wrongful kicks & bans being handed out, I had to speak generally. I don't think the specific members of Staff that I know and have seen evidence of them doing this, would appreciate being named, as some people that linger in these forums for hateful purposes may slander them elsewhere.
Staff are people, just like the rest of the community. We do make mistakes. In the event that it does happen, it is reviewed, discussed, and fixed within the staff, and the affected player is contacted about any decisions and other new information
Outright wrongfully placed bans are rare. However, if a user strongly feels their case is an exception, they are to contact staff with evidence, and it will be handled privately
You & I both know that this isn't the entire truth.
During my time on the Team, bans were placed against players that then went on to challenge the case & that case was entirely ignored or met with a 'they're always a trouble-maker, just ignore them, kicking up a fuss as always' amongst the Team themselves.
Again, you're making this out that this is a bigger issue than it is. While you were on the team, all punishments issued should have had evidence to support them just as staff had always done. Not once during that time did a user provide legitimate evidence against their issued punishment
New staff are taught to uphold respect and professionalism when interacting with any member of the community. If it's a case of handling a repetitive troublemaker trying to cause problems or prematurely get back to the game, we are simply stricter with them. It's these types of cases you may be remembering -- you're also aware we do not tolerate users attempting to get out of their ban before it expires
This hasn't been a continuous cycle and I'm sure this has changed over the past 2-3 years, but the fact that it was a thing in the first place is what causes concern on my end.
If you truly believe it's not a current issue, why keep bringing it up? This thread is about the present
This is also a Leadership issue (to keep it related to the original topic). While we were all trained in some way, some of us were trained by one person with a specific way of doing things, while others were trained by someone else. & To add, they trained by what they thought was the best way to train, there was no step-by-step training guide for them to follow to ensure everyone received the same training.
I don't know if this has changed or will change, but I sincerely hope so if not done already.
Our policies have been passed down from staffer to staffer, and an eligible staffer will be taught how to train incoming MITs. All training every MIT has received, regardless of who taught them, stems back to one person's teachings at the end of the day. If staff feel a specific policy/approach is no longer effective, it will be reviewed by the team and a new "guide" will be decided and effective immediately
I will quote this idea that I'd placed, as I've nothing else to say on the matter and, the point still stands:Another issue I'd like to bring to the table is Training of Staff.
I don't doubt that Staff receive a very professional method of training. But I, for one, didn't during my time of appointment. The training itself was decent but, when I was working with other Staffers, it was clear that someone had been taught one thing and I'd been taught another, so decisions & actions were causing communicative issues & arguments to occur.
I already addressed what happened when you were appointed as a member of staff:
This MIT training system is designed to only have one or two MITs at any given time. This allows for the admins to have the necessary time with their MIT/s to fully educate them in all of our policies/knowledge/etc. Any more than two, and more information may begin to slip between the cracks for some MITs. When you joined the staff team there were more people trying to learn than available to teach. There were policies or other explanations that may have never been fully clarified, despite that we were there to answer questions. It was simply a fault of straining the system.
I'm sure this has been improved since and I've no doubt our current Staff Team are now all on the same boat but, I'd simply like to personally recommend that One specific person is assigned the role of Training new mods. A document should be made regarding topics to cover (i.e When to move threads (giving scenarios for MiTs to practice with, etc.), lock threads, when to warrant a warning via PM in-game or simply just kick/ban and how the context/use of profanity/or other things will equate to ban length) & this document should only be accessible to that person doing the Training, simply to avoid the spread of false information via other Admins/Global/Moderators. That way when things fall out of line, it is down to that Trainer to correct or relay the information back to this document and, you get the jist (hopefully).
If the Trainer later steps down from their position on the Staff team, then this document should be sent to the person taking their place. They should also receive a briefing as to what exactly to say, how to say it, etc.
Recording the training of each MiT could be worth the while, but I wouldn't suggest it be a requirement. More of like an optional recording, so that Administrators & the Server Master can confirm that individual was definitely trained. Just in case they take the wrong steps, yudda yudda.
Reason why the document should only be accessible to that specific Trainer is because I wouldn't want to see it edited by others and it becoming confusing, out of order or deleted by accident, or end up in the hands of the wrong people and then publicised.
Obviously, the Server Master needs to be the only ideal other one to have access to the document, just so Razmirz can overlook exactly what's being said & done, given the fact that he typically approves/disapproves of most if not everything and he also lacks the time to be able to train MiTs himself.
If there are going to be two Administrators again, maybe they can both play a part, but I don't see it being very fitting as they'll have different things to say. Sticking to one is kind of the go-to for now whilst the Team itself is very small.
This is really similar to the system we've had in place for years. Raz doesn't do any training -- it is up to the admins to train MITs. They communicate with one another to make sure they're on the same page with their teachings. When one admin steps down, a new one is appointed and taught how to train. MITs are given practice
As for a document, we did have a thread that was available to all staff with basic guides and explanations. (I cannot recall if it was ever made available to you and the others while you were on the team.) These threads are something I want to keep in practice. They are something all staff are able to view and look back on whenever they need a refresher on a topic. They shouldn't be unavailable to the team, and staffers are aware to not edit/change anything written
77
Game Help / Re: Game turns black?
« on: April 18, 2021, 08:21:10 pm »
Try changing the game's rendering system (Direct3D9 or OpenGL)
78
Praise / Re: Praise to some amazing people<3
« on: April 17, 2021, 08:15:32 pm »
Very sweet of you to post this Security<3 Thank you!
I'm sure all the others will be very happy to read this~
I'm sure all the others will be very happy to read this~
79
Forum Discussion / Re: We Need Leadership
« on: April 12, 2021, 10:32:00 pm »
I don't have much to say as the other staffers have stated/explained a lot of things very well. There are a few things I'd like to clear up, however
Users have claimed to be banned for "no reason" from the start of the game. Staff always save screenshot evidence whenever a user is punished for breaking rules. We encourage users to contact us to clarify any questions they may have. However, many players never contact us and go straight to telling their friends or mention it on their dA, Tumblr, etc. These posts rarely include legitimate evidence. The reason why staff don't respond to them is due to our punishment policy: we do not share any information with anyone except privately with the affected player. We want to help our players, but it is not our responsibility to scour the internet for these claims and explain the reasoning to the user. Not only is it impossible to find every single one, but the player should have received their reasoning as they got booted from the game to begin with. If a player has questions, our inboxes are always open and we are happy to assist
These policies have been in effect since the beginning of the game and have been enforced until today, and will continue to be enforced
Staff are people, just like the rest of the community. We do make mistakes. In the event that it does happen, it is reviewed, discussed, and fixed within the staff, and the affected player is contacted about any decisions and other new information
Outright wrongfully placed bans are rare. However, if a user strongly feels their case is an exception, they are to contact staff with evidence, and it will be handled privately
Our policies have been passed down from staffer to staffer, and an eligible staffer will be taught how to train incoming MITs. All training every MIT has received, regardless of who taught them, stems back to one person's teachings at the end of the day. If staff feel a specific policy/approach is no longer effective, it will be reviewed by the team and a new "guide" will be decided and effective immediately
Traditional amongst FH's MIT training system, an MIT will be highly educated and supplied with basic guides to use. These guides are straight forward and illustrate course of action for the simplest of rule breaks and other situations. They are intended to lay a foundation for consistency amongst staffers. They are merely a foundation, however -- not every case of rule breaking will be exactly the same. It simply serves as a guide to ensure a staffer's approach and actions in complicated situations will be as consistent as possible. Every MIT receives the same training, guides, and other necessary knowledge. However, I would like to reiterate that we are human, so every now and then some details may accidentally be left out. No need for the MIT to worry though, as staff commonly review situations and make decisions together, well beyond one's MIT days. It's in these team scenarios and continuing to ask questions where a recently-appointed full mod will catch up on anything they were still unsure about
This MIT training system is designed to only have one or two MITs at any given time. This allows for the admins to have the necessary time with their MIT/s to fully educate them in all of our policies/knowledge/etc. Any more than two, and more information may begin to slip between the cracks for some MITs. When you joined the staff team there were more people trying to learn than available to teach. There were policies or other explanations that may have never been fully clarified, despite that we were there to answer questions. It was simply a fault of straining the system. Yes, we were inconsistent at that time, more so than we had been in years or ever since. Consistency is much improved now
Kicks serve as warnings, and we've taken this approach for two reasons: so the user sees it, and so it's taken seriously. Sometimes players ignore verbal warnings given in local or whisper, and it's for this reason why we commonly save verbal warnings for preventative cases. In terms of harsher punishments, there could be a number of reasons why two users may be issued different consequences. Most of the time it's simply that the two users' actions are different. One may have taken part in it for a longer period of time, broken a wider variety of rules, or broken a rule more severely, etc. Even if their actions were similar, maybe one user has a history of bans, or a reporting player logged in half way through and didn't get a screenshot of everything they said or did, etc. There are countless reasons. Nonetheless, staff will judge each case fairly with the evidence presented. If we receive more evidence later, we will re-review the situation and handle it accordingly
There have been claims of wrongful bans being handed out, as well as in-game kicks, etc. and there was even plenty of pages of evidence to prove this, Tumblr/deviantArt being the most popular. Of course, these situations were denied & ignored.
Users have claimed to be banned for "no reason" from the start of the game. Staff always save screenshot evidence whenever a user is punished for breaking rules. We encourage users to contact us to clarify any questions they may have. However, many players never contact us and go straight to telling their friends or mention it on their dA, Tumblr, etc. These posts rarely include legitimate evidence. The reason why staff don't respond to them is due to our punishment policy: we do not share any information with anyone except privately with the affected player. We want to help our players, but it is not our responsibility to scour the internet for these claims and explain the reasoning to the user. Not only is it impossible to find every single one, but the player should have received their reasoning as they got booted from the game to begin with. If a player has questions, our inboxes are always open and we are happy to assist
These policies have been in effect since the beginning of the game and have been enforced until today, and will continue to be enforced
When I talk about wrongful kicks & bans being handed out, I had to speak generally. I don't think the specific members of Staff that I know and have seen evidence of them doing this, would appreciate being named, as some people that linger in these forums for hateful purposes may slander them elsewhere.
Staff are people, just like the rest of the community. We do make mistakes. In the event that it does happen, it is reviewed, discussed, and fixed within the staff, and the affected player is contacted about any decisions and other new information
Outright wrongfully placed bans are rare. However, if a user strongly feels their case is an exception, they are to contact staff with evidence, and it will be handled privately
This is also a Leadership issue (to keep it related to the original topic). While we were all trained in some way, some of us were trained by one person with a specific way of doing things, while others were trained by someone else. & To add, they trained by what they thought was the best way to train, there was no step-by-step training guide for them to follow to ensure everyone received the same training.
I don't know if this has changed or will change, but I sincerely hope so if not done already.
Our policies have been passed down from staffer to staffer, and an eligible staffer will be taught how to train incoming MITs. All training every MIT has received, regardless of who taught them, stems back to one person's teachings at the end of the day. If staff feel a specific policy/approach is no longer effective, it will be reviewed by the team and a new "guide" will be decided and effective immediately
You say that most of the people would've been warned a handful of times, but this is simply not the truth for all cases (even though it should be). When I was on the Team, I witnessed people kicking for one reason, while others banned for the exact same reason. There was no set-in-stone system that said "if a user does ____ then they receive a kick/ban for ___ minutes/hours/days/months/years" and as a result, I was receiving reports from users left, right & centre of them receiving a severe punishment for something that their friend received a lesser punishment for doing the exact same.
Now this may have changed since the Staff Team were changed, but I know for a fact that this was a broken kicking/banning system that had been going on for a long time prior to me & others being appointed. It was an issue that may have been addressed behind the scenes, but never got beyond a discussion. Little to no action was taken.
Traditional amongst FH's MIT training system, an MIT will be highly educated and supplied with basic guides to use. These guides are straight forward and illustrate course of action for the simplest of rule breaks and other situations. They are intended to lay a foundation for consistency amongst staffers. They are merely a foundation, however -- not every case of rule breaking will be exactly the same. It simply serves as a guide to ensure a staffer's approach and actions in complicated situations will be as consistent as possible. Every MIT receives the same training, guides, and other necessary knowledge. However, I would like to reiterate that we are human, so every now and then some details may accidentally be left out. No need for the MIT to worry though, as staff commonly review situations and make decisions together, well beyond one's MIT days. It's in these team scenarios and continuing to ask questions where a recently-appointed full mod will catch up on anything they were still unsure about
This MIT training system is designed to only have one or two MITs at any given time. This allows for the admins to have the necessary time with their MIT/s to fully educate them in all of our policies/knowledge/etc. Any more than two, and more information may begin to slip between the cracks for some MITs. When you joined the staff team there were more people trying to learn than available to teach. There were policies or other explanations that may have never been fully clarified, despite that we were there to answer questions. It was simply a fault of straining the system. Yes, we were inconsistent at that time, more so than we had been in years or ever since. Consistency is much improved now
Kicks serve as warnings, and we've taken this approach for two reasons: so the user sees it, and so it's taken seriously. Sometimes players ignore verbal warnings given in local or whisper, and it's for this reason why we commonly save verbal warnings for preventative cases. In terms of harsher punishments, there could be a number of reasons why two users may be issued different consequences. Most of the time it's simply that the two users' actions are different. One may have taken part in it for a longer period of time, broken a wider variety of rules, or broken a rule more severely, etc. Even if their actions were similar, maybe one user has a history of bans, or a reporting player logged in half way through and didn't get a screenshot of everything they said or did, etc. There are countless reasons. Nonetheless, staff will judge each case fairly with the evidence presented. If we receive more evidence later, we will re-review the situation and handle it accordingly
80
Forum Discussion / Re: [Community] Player Feedback
« on: April 11, 2021, 11:41:14 pm »Oh, I totally understand why it was applied to the system..I guess I just felt bad for the users in the Game Help section since I know they don't want to wait for a staff to approve their post...I just know they want to receive feedback quickly, so they hope onto the game. Perhaps certain boards can have the approval system? For example:Well my concern is...
New members - When a new member register and makes a thread/comment, they have to wait for the staff to approve their message. I remember doing this at the time, and I was pretty annoyed by it, which I understand if it drives people away. I just think the approval post should be removed. If the user posts happens to be bad, then this why we have staff to given the appropriate punishment. Otherwise, I think that's heading the wrong direction.
This is one of my feedbacks...I am not sure if I am doing this right :nervous_laugh:
I agree, but I do understand why it's there though as it's most likely to stop the likes of new users or "fakes" and "trolls" creating an account and just spamming forums with absolute nonsense, so that way with the message approval system the MODS can choose wether to accept or delete messages and spare the community from any rubbish they would have said.
No approve:
-Forum games
-Game Help/Site Help
Approval:
Whatever else is left in the forum
I definitely agree with you that it's tedious for forum newcomers to wait for post approval. As fast as staff try to get pending posts approved, there's always going to be the scenario where a post can go unapproved for hours because the staff are all asleep, at work, etc. 25 posts is a lot, especially in the eyes of someone trying to make their first few. Too high of a number in my eyes. I think it could definitely use a decrease to maybe the first 10 posts instead -- enough to effectively filter through new accounts simply trying to spam or otherwise cause trouble, but not too high where forum newcomers get discouraged or frustrated. Thoughts on what it could be decreased to?
I also like your idea of excluding this mod approval feature from certain boards. The only downside I can see to this is that it simply defeats the purpose of having the feature on the forums at all, as any troublesome new accounts will just go to those specific boards. With careful discussion we could work around this. It would be limited to very few boards (I think your suggestions are reasonable), these boards wouldn't state "no mod post approval here", etc. These couple things are all I could think of off the top of my head, but the staff could get together and brainstorm for any more preventative measures. If worse comes to worse we do still have staff for a reason -- nothing we couldn't handle. This is definitely something to look into to help keep things rolling on the forums
The forum mod/game mod split. This has been suggested a number of times over the years. FH started with its staff team structured like this, but the team at the time quickly realized that it wasn't the most efficient way of structuring itself. The team has been set up how it is currently for most of FH's history. That is, every member of staff is highly educated in rule enforcement and other staff policies in both fields of FH (game and forum). No matter the issue that arises, or where it arises, the first available staffer is able to handle it independently and effectively. It is essential for booting troublemakers quickly to ensure the game and forum remain a safe, respectful place for all players
In this thread there is a recommended twist to this idea -- split mods keep both forum and game powers so they can handle a situation in the other field if necessary. This still limits the staff. A game mod won't be as educated in forum matters and vice versa. Sure, in practice this will stop rule breaking as soon as possible, but a staffer suddenly expected to handle a situation in a field they're uneducated in will quickly get overwhelmed. Their course of action may not be exactly what a mod educated in that field would do, forcing another staffer to reassess the situation at a later time and possibly reissue warnings and other consequences, etc. It would still cause work to be piled up and be unnecessarily inefficient. Why not simply educate a mod in both fields? That's what we've been doing for years. At that point it would be silly to train a mod with full powers/abilities/knowledge only to ask them to not regularly use half of it
We appreciate the feedback, but we will keep the staff team functioning as is. It's what we've found to work best for FH's niche and community
On a side note, a quick question for you all: what can the staff do to appear more approachable to the casual player?