IGN’s New Moderation Guidelines, and What Sony Could Learn From Them
by Terra_Cide, HSM Editor-in-Chief
“Freedom of Speech!” Comes the inevitable retort. “You’re taking away our freedom of speech!”
Here’s the unfortunate truth about any internet forum setting: a few bad apples can drive everyone else away if they’re allowed to continue. And the problem is that while most content moderation guidelines cover egregious offenses, very little is done about those who act like jerks but don’t technically break any of the aforementioned rules.
So, inevitably, you end up with a forum environment filled with asshats, allowed to basically dictate the tone of what is and isn’t acceptable dialogue. Which effectively defeats the whole point of said forum to begin with.
This is why we applaud IGN’s recent move to clean up abusive commentary and become more stringent with types of feedback that may not break any of the hard rules, but are still detrimental to the overall health of the community. Frankly, we wish Sony would do the same with its own forums.
This is hardly a new stance for HSM. This publication’s harshest criticism has always been directed at the handful of rotten apples on the Sony forum, who display a dangerous combination of entitlement attitude, a desperate need for internet fame, and a remarkable knack for belittling and demeaning others while staying inside the established forum conduct guidelines. Allowing such behavior to continue in an official forum, which is a PR tool as well as a place for consumer feedback, is viewed as tacit endorsement of such behavior. Inevitably, this leads to more well-reasoned voices simply falling silent and leaving. And it also provides a horrible first-impression presentation for someone who might be new to the service and is surfing the web to find out more.
Ah, but what about freedom of speech?
Doesn’t apply.
As outlined in Amendment I of the U.S. Constitution, there are limitations as to what Congress can impose. There is no language about private enterprise. And participation on a website forum is subject to that forum’s terms of service. Which is what makes Richard Kyanka’s famous edict over at Something Awful so absolutely perfect: “I will ban you if you break the rules, I will ban you if I don’t like you, I will ban you if I’m playing Scrabble and I get a triple word score on a word which starts with the same letter as your username. I will ban you just to ban you.”
He also said, “The internet makes you stupid” – and he was right.
And you might think that having such a draconian policy in place would kill any and all website/forum participation, right? No. To the contrary, that site thrived. Just as this site continues to thrive, even though I’ll wager we’ve shut the door on more troublemakers than any other Home media site out there.
The lesson is simple: if you cannot compose well-reasoned feedback at an intellectual — rather than emotional knee-jerk — level, and you cannot respond to someone you disagree with without lobbing personal insults at them, then you won’t be allowed to participate. Simple as that. You are not entitled to be a jerk. You are not a precious and unique snowflake. You either grow up or get out.
The fact that we’re even applauding IGN for their new move is sad, in a way; it’s simply how things should have been structured from the beginning. There’s this twisted line of logic that businesses should simply (and gratefully) take all criticism that’s thrown at them, regardless of how it’s phrased or how much actual business logic is in it, and people should simply be tough enough to handle being insulted by each other, that no one dare infringe upon someone’s “right” to be a public jerk. This is absolute lunacy, designed to try to justify being a troll.
IGN’s Editor-in-Chief summed it up perfectly: “When even just one hostile comment is enough to ruin an entire thread, we’ve got to take our job as curators of our site more seriously. The best way to create an appetite is to feed it and, by letting these abusive comments live on IGN, we’ve been encouraging more of the same. It’s long past time for that to stop.”
Learn from this, Sony. Shelve the fear of banning people just because you think you might lose a few dollars of revenue. You lose far more revenue by allowing these fevered egos to taint and control one of your PR outlets. You ultimately end up with the forum environment you permit to exist, and today’s Sony Home forum is frankly septic. Which is a shame, because there are a lot of good, well-reasoned voices there, who have either fallen silent or simply departed because within-the-rules abuse was allowed to happen.
This is not a criticism of Sony’s moderating team, by the way. They’re simply enforcing the rules that have been written. No, this is advice for whomever at SCEA sets the rules for moderation: expand the parameters to include punitive action towards forum feedback which is insulting and pejorative while still technically within the current TOS outline. Give your moderation team the ability to create a Sony forum that people other than passive-aggressive, self-entitled brats who spend all day puking over everydamnthing you offer as a company will want to participate in.
Trolling is not a god-given right, nor is it a constitutionally-protected right. It’s wrong, and it needs to be dealt with in swift and harsh terms. In so doing, you create a far better environment. And the best part is that you actually don’t harm your revenue numbers or audience participation in the process. Congratulations to IGN, and may we one day see Sony follow suit.
July 20th, 2013 by Terra_Cide | 7 comments
Terra _Cide is the former Community Manager for Lockwood Publishing and Editor Emeritus for HomeStation Magazine.
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This…..is a masterpiece.
I truly hope Sony take note of this because it’s been a long time coming.
I don’t use the forums at all because of this problem. I go there to report a problem in support occasionally, but rarely because either it doesn’t get fixed anyway or I have to look at other people doing their best to be spoiled brats and egotists.
I think that Sony should step up the pace here for sure, the policy should be changed.
Great read as always Terra.
If Sony want to hire more mods and actually apply existing rules I’ll be the first one to applaud. But I think there is far more serious problems than the forums to deal with. I read the forums on almost a daily basis and post whenever I feel the need.
Sure theres a few rotten apples. I just skip their post and threads. You know.. good old ignore.
Moderation issue is a very serious problem on the net, Especially in games or apps like home. A few bad mouth on a company forums are the last of my worries.
I’d have to agree with Dr Do-Little they can’t seem to enforce current rules. If they were worried about revenue they wouldnt ban legit users of home that have one or two slip ups then allowed hacked accounts to roam around freely. Plus if they were that worried the Sony auction site where you bid with gold trophies to win stuff, wouldn’t have winners that have acquired all 1000 of they gold trophies in the same hour of the same day. Trolling is not a right nor is it acceptable. Problem is there’s users out there that have no opinion and have a total vocabulary of you guys rock and woot. Sometimes I sit there and think shut up because they are just as bad as trolls bringing no usefulness to a post what so ever. The perfect forum is praise where it is due and constructive criticism where it is required.
The fix is so easy, but getting people to fix it is the hard part… Now before anyone can say, But Blue you are part of the problem… Just know what worked for me when I was 15 or 16 does not work for me now at 20… I tried to speak up about this very problem but was bashed on one side and shunned on the other.
I think the real question is -- is it to far gone?
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lol
Personally I just feel it is sad that we need mods anyway and people can’t just be nice…
However the costs of moderating and the tech to support it are huge and it actually brings in no revenue so its a hard justification to make for any business unless your main business it to run a website which IGN do and PlayStation do not.
For IGN moderation is vital because its core business is website based and its all about reading article. For PlayStation Home this is not the main concern, for them it’s about getting people into Home and playing Home, not what they say in the forums when they are offline.
For IGN the number one way (and pretty much only way) to communicate to the IGN community is via the forums and they only need website moderation. However for PS Home its actually within Home itself and only a very small portion of the user base if any use the PS Home forums. Also PlayStation probably need 2 if not more moderation teams, one for in-game and one for the forums/blogs. Plus unlike IGN PlayStation need to moderate on a territory level, meaning more teams and more costs.
Now don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with your article above as it offends me how rude and nasty people are and if I was a mod I would ban a lot of people probably but moderation is a costly and very subjective practice. And PlayStation is part of Sony which is a very global brand that’s not going yo start banning people because they can “Ban you just to ban you.”
I blame video games… oh wait, I mean TV, I blame TV.