Why WoW forums are so bad

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

It’s not really an equivalent which ever way you look at it. Roughly five report flags get something hidden. That’s nothing.

I don’t really find downvotes do anything useful personally.

[Twiluna-argent-dawn]

Ermergerd! I havent seen you in a while!

GOERGE ITS BEEN 40 YEARS!!!.meme

[Smidge-azjolnerub]

@Chucki-aggramar

*Artificial limitations (posting links, videos, pictures etc) because you are not lurking 24/7 and not reading over every other garbage post
*Due to above most people have moved elsewhere (disrcord, reddit, mmo-c etc), there is maybe 10-20% activity compared to how it was in earlier expansions and seems to be only getting worse

Any forum’s prime function is to act as a discussion area for anything relevant to what ever the forum is for. I’m happy to see those that clutter them up with unnecessary and irrelevant memes and whatnot move on to somewhere else.

@Chucki-aggramar

*80% posts are complains, 10% weekend posts, 5% legitimate posts, 1% fun

A complaint is a totally legitimate thing to post so that makes at least 85% legit posts (using your possibly made up figures).

@Chucki-aggramar

*You have to be subbed to post so potential new players can’t even make posts

The forums are about WoW so makes perfect sense to ensure that posters have experience of playing the current game and aren’t ignorant outsiders just posting to cause trouble.

@Chucki-aggramar

*The same 10 people making similar posts over and over is a clear indicator of current state

I think you’ll find there’s a lot more than just 10 people posting on these forums.

@Chucki-aggramar

*Flag system is broken - god forbit if you say something someone doesn’t agree with or find offensive, many posts get flagged for literally no reason

The problem isn’t the flag system but the moderation team that aren’t qualified to make any judgement on an English language forum because they don’t have a full understanding of the English language.

[Barbarían-silvermoon]

@Punyelf-draenor

I don’t really find downvotes do anything useful personally.

They don’t, however they show that you can’t have the « wrong », or should I say different, opinion.

[Chucki-aggramar]

@Barbarían-silvermoon

While Reddit can look ok, it’s honestly trash, because it uses the same hivemind mentality over there. Instead of flags you have downvotes etc.

So you can’t have an honest and healthy discussion over there. Not even going to talk about who they hire, and their general bias. It’s a whole mess.

you will find as much hivemind mentality in discord if you tried, the difference is in discord you have to find those channels and join them while in reddit everything is public.

@Deadsix-scarshield-legion

How does this offend anyone on the forum though? Why was it flagged? Are we really this “soft”, or is this just another example of a toxic abuse of the flag system.

comments containing sarcasm or any kind of lqbtqwerty (be it pro or joke) get flagged as well so no surprise there even though on normal forums something like that would be completely ignored

[Ishayo-frostmane]

They, for whatever reason beyond my comprehension, reduce the rate of reporting for “It’s inappropriate”.

People are gonna be negative - you can’t stop it. All you can do is take their negativity and put it into a bucket where it’s as non-destructive as possible.

[Mellinora-argent-dawn (Mellinora)]

The blues don’t participate (meaningfully). This makes posting feedback pointless. This forces all discussions to be “I like X” - “I hate it” - “the expansion is trash” - “it’s fine and you are just a whiner” - “oh, you are just a fanboy”. Plus gender / racial / whatever bait.

WoW forums are just a place to vent, have been for years. This is the fault of the devs.

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

No hivemind is required on discourse/forums because it only takes five flags to hide a post. The majority of the time the posts we see hidden are due to masked swearing or toxic behaviour towards others, lately a few trolling topics have also gone after moderation. The system stops flagging being required after five, it’s been noticed, it will be reviewed.

We do sometimes see it abused as a downvote sometimes which is just wasting moderators time.

[Izzyfuriouss-magtheridon]

Then explain to me why i have gotten the automatic reply on my account that said from some of my replies in past threads many times i replied in. The community has flagged your post. They believe it is of X and Y.’’ And then when i try to check if i can still check my post i just get a 404 error page.

Don’t tell me my post just got hidden by a mod, i ain’t believeing that for a second.

[Chucki-aggramar]

@Punyelf-draenor

No hivemind is required on discourse/forums because it only takes five flags to hide a post. The majority of the time the posts we see hidden are due to masked swearing or toxic behaviour towards others, lately a few trolling topics have also gone after moderation. The system stops flagging being required after five, it’s been noticed, it will be reviewed.

We do sometimes see it abused as a downvote sometimes which is just wasting moderators time.

I’ve had comments flagged/removed which had literally no offense and I’ve had more comments flagged/removed here than in my entire lifetime in every other boards combined. Though I would say flagging is one of the lesser issues so I’m not sure why it’s getting the most attentions here…

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

I think I’m always most amused by the claims of discords where people are plotting against others.

[Mellinora-argent-dawn (Mellinora)]

@Punyelf-draenor

I think I’m always most amused by the claims of discords where people are plotting against others.

They are real. Maybe not as frequent as people bring them up, but absolutely real. First-hand experience.

[Frizzle-defias-brotherhood]

Seemed perfectly normal when I was there…

Especially the nightly ritual of sacrficing one of Twilunas alts to grant a blessing of protection from the banhammer on the rest of members.

https://sayingimages.com/wp-content/uploads/alex-jones-conspiracy-theories-memes.jpg

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

People are free to believe whatever they want, but there are not coordinating forum illuminati.

The bulk of flagged posts you can see exactly why they are flagged. Even when it’s flag abuse it’s not coordinated. It’s people disliking the person or the topic.

[Kiroh-lightbringer]

At least it’s not twitter here (yet), where people get offended by every little fart that’s being shot out into the world (let’s not even go into cancel culture(. They get offended by any (non-left) opinion, whilst people with common sense just see it as having a discussion. But I guess this post will be removed soon

[Mellinora-argent-dawn (Mellinora)]

I didn’t mean to say that most flags are coordinated, this is obviously not the case. But there are discords where salty people ask others to spam-flag a post from their perceived forum enemy just to shut them up, and yes, some agree to do it (content does not matter obviously).

[Chucki-aggramar]

@Kiroh-lightbringer

At least it’s not twitter here (yet), where people get offended by every little fart that’s being shot out into the world (let’s not even go into cancel culture(. They get offended by any (non-left) opinion, whilst people with common sense just see it as having a discussion. But I guess this post will be removed soon

it already got flagged but was unflagged so there is hope

@Mellinora-argent-dawn

I didn’t mean to say that most flags are coordinated, this is obviously not the case. But there are discords where salty people ask others to spam-flag a post from their perceived forum enemy just to shut them up, and yes, some agree to do it (content does not matter obviously).

I don’t know why some people think discord is some golden place, the app is good and I use it daily, but there is discord channel for almost every thing imaginable so having some hivemind groups which go after someone would be the least surprising though I doubt it has much effect if any on WoW forums

[Furyeclipser-stormscale]

@Punyelf-draenor

It’s people disliking the person

Not valid reason for post to be flagged.

[Osangar-aszune (Osangar)]

I would guess that the vast majority would agree with you on this point. I would say, however, that of the ‘hidden posts’ I have opened to see the content, there are very few where it is not obvious why the post has been flagged.

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

@Furyeclipser-stormscale

@Punyelf-draenor

It’s people disliking the person

Not valid reason for post to be flagged.

Indeed but that goes without saying. It’s false flagging but it’s not coordinated on a discord.

Edit actually I have said it repeatedly

@Punyelf-draenor

We do sometimes see it abused as a downvote sometimes which is just wasting moderators time.