I think it does. If there are more pro-4E/anti-3E posters on the boards, the boards skew pro-4E. When it seems that the 4e posters get away with more bashing while the 3E posters are hushed more quickly, the boards skew even more that direction.
Return of the Edition War
- Thread starter Fifth Element
- Start date
I think it does. If there are more pro-4E/anti-3E posters on the boards, the boards skew pro-4E. When it seems that the 4e posters get away with more bashing while the 3E posters are hushed more quickly, the boards skew even more that direction.
4E posters are NOT treated differently to 3E posters, or anyone else. As we've repeated many times now, we really do not care what game you like; and, indeed, more mods play 3E than 4E. In fact, most of the time we don't know what game you prefer before we look at a particular reported post, since there are 80,000 members.
Rude people are treated differently to polite people, however. And 4E gets "bashed" more than 3E due to it being the new kid on the block; and "bashing" is an acivity which has a higher probability of rudeness.
IF you believe you've seen 4E posters acting in a way they shouldn't, just report the post. We'll look at it.
Mark
CreativeMountainGames.com
It may just be that so much happens behind the scenes that it is not as obvious when certain situations are handled. Is there a way to address some of the current concerns through increased transparency?
I don't think that's it. What I think is that folks notice things relevant to themselves, and not other stuff going on. A person who gets a warning, for example, is focused on that warning, and not on the half-dozen others that may have been given out that day.
Combined with - as I've illustrated a couple of times in this thread - the nature of threads (new game gets criticised a lot, old game doesn't; perfectly natural - same with movies or anything else, but we're talking about games here) and the fact that a critical thread is by its nature more provocative and negative than a complimentary thread. The stats simply play out exactly as you would expect them to based on basic laws of probability.
So, quite naturally, more people get into trouble criticising 4E than those who get into trouble criticising 3E, because more people criticise 4E. it's simple maths. If a given percentage of critical threads step over the line, the game which attracts the higher number of criticised threads gets a higher number of people being moderated when they criticise it. And that game, movie, album, TV show, whatever, will nearly always be the "new" one. People then comlpetely mistake the line of causality; they believe that the action was taken because of the poster's opinion (even when the moderator explicitly posts otherwise - they'll just claim he/she is lying) and not because of the real reason, the one they can't see in themselves, which is that, at that moment, they were simply being an ass. For many, it's always someone else's fault, not their own.
I know; I'm guilty of it, too. It's human nature. It can be hard to see one's own failings and mistakes. Human nature will tend to look elsewhere for an explanation - any explanation, including unjust accusations of others' motives - than admit they're in the wrong. And - let's be frank here - those accusations of moderator bias, dishonesty, financial motives, etc. are wrong.*
A Star Trek site will have had the exact same problem with the new movie, and if it had been around would have had the exact same problem when The Next Generation was launched.
Ascribing undue motives and so forth to the situation is natural, of course; but that doesn't make it rational.
I can't think of a way which wouldn't be humiliating to the posters involved. We're not about to create a pillory so everyone can point and laugh at anyone who got a warning for something.
*You can even apply logic to the ad dollars accusations; it's not in WotC's interests to spend money preaching to the converted. I'd suspect that they'd be more interested in advertising if they felt they had an audience to convert. They're a business. They don't spend money if they don't need to, and any pro-4E bias, if it existed, amongst the moderation would be contrary to that aim. It doesn't even make sense! Our motive is "make everyone like 4E so WotC doesn't need to advertise here"?! I mean, the logic of the accusations isn't even internally consistent!
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You state that as if pro-4e and anti-3e are the same, or go hand in hand. Wipe that idea from your head, because you cannot be farther from the truth. It is, in fact, quite possible to be pro-4e/pro-3e. There's any number of folks on these boards who like both games for what they do well.
I will repeat what others have said before me in this thread: the pro-X people on either side are generally not a problem. Folks could talk about what makes their favorite edition cool until they are blue in the face, and we'd have few problems.
It is when anti-X shows up that there's a problem. It is not possible to be anti-something and not be negative. It is very, very easy to be anti-something and speak negatively about the people who like the something. And that's where the trouble starts.
And, as a simple matter of logic, the people who prefer 3e had more negative feelings, and thus had a stronger tendency to be anti-something.
So, jerky behavior had a tendency to be correlated with edition preference. This produces what is sometimes called a "confounding bias" - action against jerks happens to hit those who prefer 3e somewhat more, even when moderators didn't consider what edition the speaker is talking about. So, to the outside, it can look like we have an edition bias, when we don't.
Somehow, back before 4e was released, we were able to discuss 3e without having go beat on another edition to do it. Return to that, and you should find your 3e discussion remarkably unmoderated, and in fact protected by the mods, most of whom still like 3e.
Mark
CreativeMountainGames.com
I think that Rolflyn's concern is with people who are pro-4E who feel the need to beat on 3E to discusss 4E, if I am reading him right. I don't believe that he is saying that all pro-4E posters are also anti-3E, just that certain posters seem to be both.
I meant a combined Pro-4E and Anti-3E outlook. There are those that are pro-4E that go into 3E threads and post how awesome 4E is and thus they aren't negative, but they aren't creating goodwill. Or those that drop a note that they left 3E long behind and are very happy that they did so.
I don't see the reverse as much. But I'm willing to admit it is because I stay out of 4E threads.
In any event, I find things far nicer for 3E and Pathfinder fans at other sites. If ENWorld doesn't see this as a problem, that's your call. I saw a thread about the problem, thought I'd post and clarify. I know one voice won't change anything, but I would be remiss if I sat silent.
Turst me, it's there and far worse. Anti-4e sentiment, when it occurs, is much more vitriolic than anti-3E sentiment. Believe me, we have to moderate it! I myself percieve an anti-4E bias, with 4E continually refered to as a video game, compared unfavourably to WOW, described as limited and gamist and as nothing more than a tabletop skirmish/war game, as so forth. It's all a matter of perception (in my case, because those are the ones which end up in the moderator queue most often, highlighting a very strong anti-4E sentiment).
And that's fine; I'm not trying to persuade you that you should prefer EN World to your chosen sites. I'm merely suggesting that it's possible that you may be more sensitive to one particular side of the issue.
As a side-note to everyone, it's easy to say "EN World seems X to me"; but do you have any actual constructive suggestions on how to address the problems from a moderation front? Preferably suggestions that don't stem from the false premise that the mods treat anyone differently depending on their edition preference rather than their demeanour because, that premise being untrue, it's not really a suggestion we can work with.
We're totally open to practical suggestions (doesn't mean we'll adopt them, but if you've thought of some great idea that we haven't, we'll never know about it unless you tell us!) Unfortunately, people just repeating "I believe there's a bias in X direction" just doesn't help us resolve anything except give us the opportunity to reassure folks that we don't have an edition-bias when moderating. Which is an approach which is clearly not working.
It could be that folks on both sides of the coin are experiencing exactly the same thing in opposite directions, and so everyone sees EN World as being anti-them. The only answer might be for EN World to stop trying to accomodate everyone and plant a flag firmly one way or the other, ensuring a more harmonious membership more in tune with each other.
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