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@Tamat - Moderation a la JaGeX

Daen·7/20/2014, 6:35:17 AM·14 votes·944 views

Hi everyone,

I wanted to outline some of the important parts of my favorite forum moderation system of all time as I feel it could be valuable for the development of these Boards. JaGeX is the company that develops RuneScape, and I feel that the way they approached their forums during the time I played was brilliant.

#JaGeX moderators (J-Mods) had their own individual identities

JaGeX did not believe in canned responses; every moderator was an individual person and had autonomy in how they dealt with problems
J-Mods were community figures first and mods second; they were people that players loved to interact with that also happened to be able to moderate
J-Mods constantly set up little forum games and competitions with players, such as a "fight" between three J-Mods where players sided with their favorite J-Mod
They were able to do this without needing to consult with other teams; the J-Mods would just decide to set up an event and follow through on it

#Every moderation action was publicly visible

When a J-Mod moved a thread, a locked ghost copy of the thread was left behind and clicking it navigated to the new location
J-Mods never deleted threads; they posted on the thread with their reasoning and locked it to prevent further interaction
J-Mods were able to edit specific posts, and when this was done it would show a visible notification on that post with the name of the moderator

#Player Moderators were massively important in the system

JaGeX would pick out the absolute best community members and offer them the ability to volunteer as a Forum Moderator
These F-Mods were trained by JaGeX and had all the same abilities and restrictions as J-Mods
F-Mods functioned as a bridge between the general player-base and JaGeX on important issues such as balance, stability, and discussion
EDIT: It seems as though Wrenchmen currently fill a very similar function to JaGeX's F-Mods. This could be interesting to discuss

TL:DR - JaGeX moderation was all about individuality and player-developer interaction. It seems like these two concepts are what Riot is all about, and it concerns me a bit that the current moderation solution is, for the most part, behind closed doors. I have no idea if this will change or I'm misinterpreting the system, but that's my feeling on the current state of things.

Daen

11 Comments

Tamat7/23/2014, 1:00:30 AM4 votes

Thanks for posting this. I'm actually fairly familiar with how moderation is done at this, and other companies in the gaming industry, but given how different the Boards as a platform is, our approach is going to be different over a few dimensions.

Moderators with individual identities

I'm not opposed to moderators having their own unique identities, but until we're comfortable with the team, we're going to be keeping the footprint of the moderators to a minimum. We think that you having access to more Rioters is more important. Keep in mind, that our moderators are currently contractors, not Rioters, and though we spend a lot of time training them so that their actions are consistent and player focused, this hasn't always been the case, and we're in the middle of improving that.

Moderation actions publicly visible

No. We've seen this request on and off, but this approach would not benefit the Boards, or most players. It creates a lot of unnecessary noise, would require development work, and the benefits don't outweigh the problems it would create. Individual players that have their content removed will get a moderator message, that's a pretty big step from what we used to doe may do something more down the road, but I can't see us doing what you proposed.

Player Moderators

Absolutely! We're planning this down the road, but not in the ways you would expect. I can't go into a ton of detail, but we're putting a lot of thought into how this will work, and should have more information for you about this year. It's going to be badass.

Would be more than happy to go into some more detail if you have specific questions. I'll check back on this thread later tonight.

Cynicatt7/20/2014, 9:46:58 PM2 votes

Currently, on the Wildstar forums, their moderators always comment on a thread stating why they're locking it before they lock it, and they encourage you to PM them if you have any further questions about some moderator action.

It's pretty nice, honestly.

The mods are insanely over-active though, and lock or move an astonishingly high amount of threads... but at least they tell you why they did it and aren't faceless.

Sir ArmaMalum7/20/2014, 3:03:16 PM1 votes

This really is a great system that really worked for Jagex, but as far as using for Riot there are a few nit-picky problems. There will have to be some form of automation simply because of the vast numbers in the forum userbase. Even with player mods or even more Riot mods there are simply too many to and-write a response, so I actually think the current system is ok if the addition of commenting by the mods and a more active community contribution by the mods (making them visible) was also added or something along those lines.

Honestly I think the easiest thing would be a system to incorporate player mods of dome kind would be the single best approach to getting to something close to this. As you said, Daen, they can form a bridge between the Riot mods and the players and they may be a viable source of compromise between the current invisible moderation and the demand for moderation identity. The main issue I can see with them is reliability, trust and training.

Reliability meaning how often these player mods actually moderated, naturally someone just sitting there with the title wouldn't be ideal. How did Jagex deal with that if you know?
Trust meaning, simply, no power abuse. This would probably just come down to making sure the right people were picked. But the possibility of removal may be a thing to think about. Did Jagex have to deal with a rogue layer mod at any time to your knowledge?
Training. I really don't know how this could be easily done besides maybe a dry online virtual lesson or seminar. How did Jagex do it? On top of that I do have an idea for that, we could have moderators-in-training who were chosen, and they can 'flag' posts for the real mods to delete and give the reason why. These player mods can then be graded or otherwise critiqued and when the mods feel they're within their tolerances of accuracy they can be promoted. This is just me thinking out loud though.

Rhlax7/20/2014, 9:25:29 PM1 votes

I like the idea of Player Mods in RS for the simple reason it rewards outstanding community members. It certainly also improve the quality of the forums.

For League's forum since it has an upvote/downvote system, we might need to do it a bit differently. Here is my wild suggestion Draven :

Tiered Users There are 3 tiers (regular, exceptional, valuable)

Regular: Everyone starts here.

Exceptional: After gaining X amount of upvotes, the user levels up! He/she has a special power: Power vote (limit 2, 18 hours cool down) Use this ability to increase up vote to 2 points instead of 1 on a post. Cannot use on self.

Valuable: Rioters pick the valuable community members. The valuable user can: Power vote (limit 3, 18 hours cool down) **Concussive Blows ** Braum : Has ability to cast concussive blows (no limit, no cool down). Can only strike a particular post once. A post receiving 4 concussive blows will be removed. This means, to hide a post, it would require 4 valuable users.