[General Feedback] - The forums and the Community Management Team needs improvement
March 17, 2018 9:01AM
edited March 2018
The post made by @CG_RyDiggs over the last 24 hours has shown beyond doubt that their is something missing at the core of the team here on the Official Forums. I have played online games for over 17 years now - including a decade with Lord of the Rings Online. Couple that with 20 years working in face-to-face customer service in the DIY industry.
I would be fired on the spot if I ever came within a figurative mile of what @CG_RyDiggs has posted on these forums, and it is not just him but the moderators, constructive, informative and needed discussions. Moved, buried, merged all into obscurity for the pretence of keeping the forums a positive place.
At the very least I personally would like an apology from someone on the team at EA who can explain to me why the forums appear to be handled by an anonymous team of people that don't appear to follow any community guidelines and constantly berate and talk down to their customer base as if we are of Primary School age.
I would be fired on the spot if I ever came within a figurative mile of what @CG_RyDiggs has posted on these forums, and it is not just him but the moderators, constructive, informative and needed discussions. Moved, buried, merged all into obscurity for the pretence of keeping the forums a positive place.
At the very least I personally would like an apology from someone on the team at EA who can explain to me why the forums appear to be handled by an anonymous team of people that don't appear to follow any community guidelines and constantly berate and talk down to their customer base as if we are of Primary School age.
I fight the good fight
Post edited by ShaolinPunk on
16
Replies
I have nothing against @CG_RyDiggs, he brings good information. I think some should grow some skin and stop the constant whining about pretty much everything. That’s too much noise that burries valid criticism.
Take a look in this thread here - https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/163013/feedback-last-update-broke-everything-about-the-sith-team-in-my-opinion
While I do agree many here on the forums are guilty of behaving less than the sum of their actual age, the team here need to always take the high ground and should never resort to the level of disdain shown by RyDiggs in that thread. Only last week we saw a high profile sports personality suspended for the rest of the year for one moment of madness due to being provoked. You cannot have these moments if you are in a customer facing position. Restraint has to be at the forefront of every communication, every decision made.
When they started this is when forums turned very negative. Please stop moving threads, it's obnoxious behavior
You can't seriously compare rydiggs his attittude in that thread to spitting on a 12(?) yo girl/boy (unintentionally, since he only wanted to spit on his/her father? Also, Trump is still president, so yea...
Anyway, while i agree that an employee of ea/cg should always remain the "bigger man", some people do hold them up to an unreasonable high standard. I've read the first 3 pages of that thread and i'll have to admit he comes across as a bit of an a-kitten. On the other hand, he explains pretty much what's what and that his hands are tied. While he may not win a PR-person of the month rewards, i don't really have a problem with anything he's saying. If anything, i think he's being too honest.
No offense, but he didnt take offense at how the OP wasnt investing in sion. He had a probelm with the OP telling others not to.
So thats a bad example.
Hahahahaha.
No.
I'd counter that with "they should stop giving players stuff to whine about constantly"
you would counter that, but you don't since you know that's impossible
How so? They constantly do stuff that makes no sense or that they should have foreseen being an issue in the first place. I'd imagine you're not saying they're free from sin, right?
I'm not saying that at all, i'm saying that players will whine regardless of what the devs do or don't do. So whatever they do, it will give players "stuff to whine about constandly".
very well put
I never realized just how badly this was the case until I saw how upset many were about having too much to do in the game, only a couple of months after widespread complaints and threats to quit due to the lack of content. Yes, there are many areas of the game/community that need improvement. But people need to learn to pick their battles and not get so upset over Every. Single. Thing.
There are lots of players in this game, and lots of forum members. What one person wants may be the last thing another wants. So any decision will leave some people slightly unhappy, some delighted, some disgusted.
With such a wide audience, there aren’t many choices that the devs can make that DONT upset someone.
You are 100% right, you can't make everyone happy. What I have seen is that most people complain or defend based on how much it hurts or helps them. I will not complain if I am in the people it hurts category as long as they have a semi-logical reason and are consistent. Not all complaints valid, but just because it is a complaint does not make it invalid. In all walks of life it is our job to weigh the validity of feedback no matter what form it is given or who gives it.
Lets hope that RyDiggs and the moderation team learn from this as well and take forward concerns regarding professionalism here on the Official Forums. I understand that regular mods are not paid but once you accept that position you become the face of CG/EA/Disney/Star Wars.The first line for customers on these forums to query their issues and provide helpful support. That is, not simply closing/merging/burying threads but helpful constructive feedback about how to get our problems resolved. Palming us off on to EA Answers does nothing but infuriate people, especially when they have to jump through hoops to get a resolution to often easy questions.
Because reddit is a paragon of being easy to navigate.
We're not anonymous, and always looking for more volunteers, here's a list of our current folk: Forum Moderators. We do merge and move posts to ease navigation and promote discussion, there is no obscurity for a post that's in an active megathread, you want to BE in the megathread (or the proper sub-category). There are some folks who feel that merging and moving threads is unnecessary, but for our purposes of gathering information and feedback, and ease or reading for all of us, this is the best system. The alternative is obviously one huge General discussion that might have 10, 20, 30+ threads all talking about the same things. These practices are not likely to change. If you ever have an issue with finding a post you made, or the redirect link isn't working, you can always reach out to a moderator and we will be happy to assist you. We strive to be understandable, especially to players who might be reading English as a second language, so you may see things explained a few different ways or with more common words, but it is for clarity.
I also want to remind everyone that all forum users (including moderators) are expected to follow Forum Guidelines and Terms of Service. If you have a case of someone on staff who is not posting as such, you can make your reports to the Community Manager (LINK).
I'd be interested in hearing more on how moving threads turned the forums negative. Being able to go to a subcategory and read topics under which they are listed should not feel obnoxious, it should help people find what they are looking for if they choose to skip the "Search" function. We're always looking for ideas on how to improve user experience in finding discussions they want to take part in, let us know if you have ideas oh now to improve that.
Again, report any posts by moderators that are breaking Forum Guideline or Terms of Service to the Community Manager. You should be experiencing support from forum staff, and we want to know if there is a missed opportunity. No thread is buried, and nothing is deleted. People do use the search function, and they do read sub-forums, all day long. There has been lots of feedback about missing a bugs and issues sub-forum, but the truth is, the forum mechanics don't offer what Answers HQ does. The bugs and issues sub-forum had no method to record, log or monitor bugs and their impact on the community, while Answers HQ does all this automatically for the devs. With Answers HQ, the devs can quickly see what the biggest issues for the community are at a glance, expediting their side to simply get to work on addressing the bug or issue. With that in mind, we now ask users to explicitly discuss bugs and issues in 'real-time' on Answers HQ, so that the discussion can help lead to faster turnaround on fixes. It's a win-win.
Thanks to everyone who weighed in on this.