*Site suggestion* Kinder staff messages

[Audrey_Bee]

I have re-posted as the last one was deleted *for the posts that was added to it seeming to be rant posts*. I have also removed ideas that are somewhat in place. ill have to ask to not post rants on here or it'll get locked again. I really want to try to make a difference with this as me and many others believe this is the current biggest problem with CS! . I believe we all have a right to have a little moan as long as its not mean. Silencing things like that only makes situations worse so don't feel like you have no voice

Im trying to make this as basic and blameless as humanly possible! This all comes from a genuine heart of love and compassion for this site. Please no hate speech towards anyone.
Mods please delete if its not allowed, I did check the rules and couldn't see anything against this!


What is the idea?

●Bring back the Human side to interactions between players and mods.

●A lot of warnings or notices we are given are very blunt. A nicer touch to these things when they're not serious would be nicer!

●Have shorter ban periods before banning permanently if the warnings have been given for minor instances. For example, a 2 week ban or mute people from forums or chats (basically make their account COPPA for a period of time as a punishment instead of a permanent ban)
This has been clarified to already be in place ❤️


Where did this idea come from?
It's one of the biggest issues I ever come across with this site is the times I get warnings when I know in my heart there's nothing I've done, but I try to get explanations as to why I've been given a warning and there is none. Its like "this person has been reported..I'll give them a warning and we can move on."

I did explain a situation I was in but that was removed, which is fair enough. However that was also followed by a snarky comment from a moderator which proves my point of, please can we have nicer, more human responses from staff? ❤️ I'm in absolute shock.

--‐------------
I don't think some people realise how distressing warnings can be. When I've also witnessed with my own eyes people also not directly breaking rules but very clearly doing something damaging and they've not been given any warnings because they're not technically doing anything wrong. But where's that technicality when there's a disagreement between two players 🤔

But people who I have seen trying to scam newbies, me and many other people reported them and we were told that people are free to value pets how they like.


Overall...
*Edited after some staff clarifications*
Most importantly, we as players need to be spoken to a bit nicer. *especially* if it's not a clean cut case, or if it's accidental rule breaking eg posting too often. Especially if it's a first rule breaking of that kind that we were just not aware of.



Well there's not many people that agree....is there..?
Absolutely they do!
There are many many people, especially over the last couple of years, who have quit purely due to feeling as though the staff don't care or how "scary" they are in their messages!



Staff please note i was informed the last post was locked purely down to the responses that came with it so re-uploading is not rule breaking if i ask for posts that seem to be ranting to be removed. I will refrain from responding to them as well and itll just be a support or not support. Thank you. If theres any other issues with this post that you have, please let me know.

For those who are pressing the option of you don't think there's an issue, also feel free to type out a reply! let us know why you think that, any really good experiences you've had with the staff or why you think stern messages are a good way of dealing with situations? It's always nice to hear from both sides !! ❤️

[Darkcloud!]

I'm going to quote Zeena's post from the last topic, as it provides good insight into how the reporting system is handled.
https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=119&t=4955752&start=10#p145349019

Hey there,
Unfortunately this topic has only been used so far to discuss and vent about warnings that were received rather than constructive discussion. For this reason the topic will be locked as we don't allow rant threads, and ranting/venting about warnings/staff is not helping the situation further or assisting with solutions. Vaguing negatively about any users, including staff, is also not acceptable.

To clarify, every single ticket and report we receive is not seen by only one staff member. Our ticket reporting system works by having the lowest group available assigned to deal with the ticket. For example, reports on profiles having inappropriate content will be assigned to GMs where all GMs, AAs and admins have access to the ticket. Any tickets that are not clear-cut (where we have a standard way of dealing with the situation, such as if someone shares their age on their profile) are thoroughly discussed by staff within the ticket itself. While you may receive a response from one staff member, the response comes from the opinions of multiple staff members. This is also why ticket responses may take some time since we wait for more opinions from other staff before coming to a decision.

If you don't understand why you received a warning you can contact the staff member who gave it to you asking for clarification. If you'd rather talk to another staff member about it or don't feel you're getting anywhere after asking the original staff member, you can send in a help ticket. If you disagree with the warning and wish to appeal you can also send in a help ticket and staff will look into the situation. Staff are indeed humans too, and we have revoked warnings in the past.

Finally, please keep in mind that we cannot break user confidentiality by explaining what actions were taken against another user. Often times it looks like nothing was done as everything we do is done privately. I'm sure many users would be upset if we handed out warnings publicly. Our main response to tickets is to simply thank the user for reporting and tell them to block the other user involved since that is the best way of avoiding contact with them in the future. This doesn't mean nothing was done, it's just that you do not know what action we took since we can't actually share that information.

If you have further questions regarding your specific situation please send in a help ticket.

My main issue is not that I am told to block people as a final resolution. It is understandable that you cannot share action taken, and I wouldn't want that either- there's no need to allow people to abuse the system that way or to be able to brag about getting a person warned/actioned.

(I am sharing the following as Examples of how the current system treats users unfairly, and to share why there is hurt around the current reporting system.)

It's when the resolution involves me, the reporter being told that the message is not rude, and being told to not report when I report a rude trade message that directly insulted the way I valued my item. We're all adults, I think it's easy to recognize that "LOL we both know that item isn't worth [fair ask]" is a rude way to cancel an edited trade and could be considered intentional malicious de-valuing.

Or when my wording isn't quite right on one particular post in a Monthly trade thread, so I am threatened with being thread-banned in the initial warning... when every other post I've made in trade threads was rule-compliant.

Or refusing to reverse a trade when there's a reported PM directly stating that they are aware that they scammed me and are bragging about getting away with it- and then threatening me that I should not continue to respond to staff, since staff has deemed it a fair trade.

It's when I am directly threatened to not use the report system anymore when the mod reading my message responds with a message that indicates they did not read my words at all and only looked at the screenshots and assumed something entirely incorrect.

How is any of that a fair justice system? How are we meant to feel safe reporting those messages from staff when the majority of messages from staff show that they are combative and uncaring? Why would we put our account at risk?

I have seen about 4-5 other people post about leaving in this past month alone, citing similar reasons.

I don't think any of us want to know the punishment doled out, we just would like the system to stick to what we are told is the rules, and what was the rules for quite some time:

-scamming trades, with evidence of a known scam, will be reversed. this should include PMs as acceptable evidence, even if the trade took place when rarities were not released, or during an event.

-Tess's words from the old trade rant thread "If you sincerely can't think of a single nice word to say when canceling a trade, then cancel it without a message." https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1364171&f=20 This should not be applied to people who respond in the trade messages or in a PM with actual advice that one could find in the fair trade threads.

-holding people to the rules posted in their trade rules and adoption thread rules. If they are sending nasty messages to users or blocking users from their adoption centers when all their stated rules are followed, that's just plain wrong.

It would be helpful to have Zeena's explanation posted somewhere alongside the "How to Report Efficiently" thread https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1726820 or to have that topic edited to reflect the additional information Zeena provided.

[Audrey_Bee]

Tess's words from the old trade rant thread "If you sincerely can't think of a single nice word to say when canceling a trade, then cancel it without a message." https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1364171&f=20 This should not be applied to people who respond in the trade messages or in a PM with actual advice that one could find in the fair trade threads.

The fact that there was a trade rant thread is amazing! I would love if it was brought back.
The problem I personally find when someone leaves a blunt or rude message when they cancel a trade is that you can't report then because being snarky isn't against any rule unfortunately. So you're left to stew in the irritation that someone has got this lasting nasty comment on you and there's nothing you can do about it.

Having a trade rant thread makes it easy to be like "hey, I got this trade which I thought was fair and they cancelled and said this thing which I thought was a bit mean."

Even if you get no one making a discussion about it, just putting it out there feels like a weight off your shoulders!

I think the thread should be brought back 100%, I think it would eliminate a lot of the pent-up anger people get from non-rule-breaking rudeness when trades are cancelled! This would give people a voice and id bet every one of my chicken dollars that there would be a lot less reports from people getting into arguments over trades!
We're all human, sometimes we need to get something off our chest

Might put that as another suggestion? But I reckon it would get rejected🤔

[jprspereira]

I would at least ask for clearer rules. What exactly does getting a warning mean? What exactly is off the table? How do mods act in terms of interpreting someone's words? Do warnings get removed with time (for "good" behaviour?)

I got 1 warning, and asked for an explanation as to why and the only answer was that the staff was choosing to interpret my words in a bad light and that I had to accept that. The more I explained my case to staff, the more distorted an answer they would give ("you said this" when I never said a single word like that). Meanwhile, the person who reported was on discord badmouthing me, which is kinda ironic lol.

The only reason I didn't proceed with it (politely like I was) was because it wasn't worth risk getting power-banned, which is a real fear when you invest so much time in the website.

[Audrey_Bee]

I would at least ask for clearer rules. What exactly does getting a warning mean? What exactly is off the table? How do mods act in terms of interpreting someone's words? Do warnings get removed with time (for "good" behaviour?)

Absolutely! I think an explanation somewhere of how the warning rules work would be cool, like you said, how many until its a ban, how long do they last? sometimes appealing for a warning doesn't work because it doesn't unfortunately come down to interpretation!

I actually found out I used a word that, where I'm from, doesn't have negative connotations, but where the mod was from, has ONLY negative connotations LOL. So what I thought was a fair comment, everyone else thought I was being rude situations like that are difficult to deal with so I think having "cool down periods" would be ideal for those situations.

I'd much rather be told "hey, you can't use that word because to us it means this" and be banned from messaging people for a few days than to have a permanent warning on my account for a misunderstanding

[Night Raven]

Agreed with all of the above messages! I've never really found out during my whole time here what does "warning" actually mean, just that it's scary xD Seeing the discussion about it and that it can lead to a perma ban makes me just not want to engage with messages at all, fearing that someone will think I was rude D: Tone is so difficult to get across via text (especially with virtually no emojis) and I think the best intentions should be assumed first

[Madel]

I've been on this site for years and I've never gotten a "warning", so I'm curious what that means if you want to dm me!

The only times I've gotten DMs from staff was to correct posts of mine, but it was never a full on warning as it was a simple mistake.
From what I've heard, the warnings/bans are given out when there is a real reason. ( ex; art theft, being mean/rude, harassment, guilt tripping, scamming, inappropriate behavior, etc )
But again, I've never gotten an official warning and this is only from what I've seen.

I could be totally misunderstanding your post too, so my bad if you're taking about something else!

If you where banned for a misunderstanding, you might be able to get a ban appeal?
I know banned users can return as long as they promise to follow the rules.

[bark]

Support, it feels like I'm walking on eggshells everytime I post- So Everytime I say something, i fear of being warned or banned-

[ellebee]

I'm kind of on the fence here. On one side, I don't think there's any issues with having a stern tone when warning someone because while it sucks to get in trouble, there's a reason someone is getting the warning in the first place. Some staff also may have issues with expressing tone due to neurodivergence or otherwise. Additionally, I see a lot of people complaining about feeling as if they're on thin ice. This is a site primarily made for family and kids, even though the userbase has evolved to be something more, I feel it should remain on the stricter side in terms of content and moderation to keep the younger userbase safe.

On the other hand, I strongly agree that CS Rules need to be far less subjective, revised, and elaborated on. As much as I don't mind, it can be a real hassle to make a help ticket every single time I'm unsure on how a rule is moderated on, which is very, very often. As far as I know, the main Code of Conduct has barely been revised at all since I've joined, and I think it's long due for an overhaul. Even if none of the rules have changed, at least further elaborating on what they mean and some examples so users don't need to hunt for a post made in 2012 where a mod elaborates in a question post.

[Papilio Ulysses]

The fact that there was a trade rant thread is amazing! I would love if it was brought back.
-snip-

The reasons for the Trade Rant Thread's closure are stated here. Even just scrolling back a few pages, I can see rule-breaking posts. With how things are these days, I don't think a Trade Rant Thread would be at all constructive - people likely would argue or just use the thread to fish for (or hint at) trades/offers.