Transparency

[Lex.]

I didn't even know there WAS an issue, and I'm on here basically every day. I saw posts on the front page, but they were just vague and confusing to me. They don't say anything specific happened, and I didn't know something DID happen until I chose to hop on the suggestions forum.

This is NOT OKAY. I've been here since 2011 and spent money here. I'm on here every day and I had ZERO IDEA something had actually happened.

I had issues with staff transparency with the artist compensation issue that happened when they hired more artists, and I have major issues with this now.

Yes, it's not CS's fault accounts were breached. But the fact that you won't just help the users out with C$ balances is not good. First, you say it's too small of a user group to make an announcement, but it's too many people to just reimburse their C$. Which is it? It can't be both too many and too few.

Very well put!
Also, if I may ask, can you elaborate on the "artists compensation issue"? I'm unfamiliar!

[vicasterology]

i think you might be right about me maybe misunderstanding some things, thats my bad, sometimes when i read paragraphs my eyes sometimes skip lines so it makes sense if im getting some stuff wrong/not understanding some of the points your making, ill try an be a bit better about it and thanks for taking time to try and help me understanf where you guys coming from
i think im also having a bit of diffculty like articulating what i mean by some stuff like having trouble wording it in a way that makes sense, im not doing a good job explaining/im fumbling my points a bit

theres more i wanna say and a point i have aboout the communication thing too but im having a really hard time wording stuff atm


also, i speak really matter of fact sometimes too i hope i havent come off rude either, its not my intention

no worries, i probably came off kinda heated too so i apologize for that

if you have any questions about the situation from my pov lmk and ill do my best to answer them tho!

[Darni]

I didn't even know there WAS an issue, and I'm on here basically every day. I saw posts on the front page, but they were just vague and confusing to me. They don't say anything specific happened, and I didn't know something DID happen until I chose to hop on the suggestions forum.

This is NOT OKAY. I've been here since 2011 and spent money here. I'm on here every day and I had ZERO IDEA something had actually happened.

I had issues with staff transparency with the artist compensation issue that happened when they hired more artists, and I have major issues with this now.

Yes, it's not CS's fault accounts were breached. But the fact that you won't just help the users out with C$ balances is not good. First, you say it's too small of a user group to make an announcement, but it's too many people to just reimburse their C$. Which is it? It can't be both too many and too few.

Very well put!
Also, if I may ask, can you elaborate on the "artists compensation issue"? I'm unfamiliar!

Hello! Artist here that went negative balance and was compensated!

So for me a hacker got ahold of an account and sent me a trade asking for an adopt I had up (I removed the post and deleted other Oekaki adopts I had up via staff) and I agreed. I accepted the payment for the adopt and I used that c$ in order to buy a few pets from a c$ store ran by a fellow player. That trade with the c$ player run store went through and a few hours later the trade reverse came in. My balance went negative so I would have to buy more c$ to get out of that negative balance. Luckily if artists were effected they were compensated. Artists put effort into that art and spent the time so staff are willing to compensate those people while anyone who had a reverse trade and it wasn't because of art were put into debt. These unsuspecting people who were simply trading like normal are now in crippling debt AND OWE CS MONEY for something out of their control. I put in a support ticket and within 48 hours I was compensated, but I've heard some people went THOUSANDS of c$ into debt over the reverse trades. Keep in mind even if only 2 accounts were hacked those hackers were doing upwards of 20+ trades all with different users and they were ALL EFFECTED. People traded pets and gifts and c$ away thinking it was legit only to have it snatched away and now they owe REAL CURRENCY because they are in debt over something out of their control. There was a thread up about this, but it was locked by staff after they basically told people that "people will try and exploit this system" when no one could have known this was happening. It turned into what I felt was victim blaming. Telling someone who just had pets or real currency taken from them are now being told "well someone will try and exploit this or could exploit this so we just don't wanna do it at all" seemed very disheartening to a lot of people. This was a week long incident basically and I feel staff should be looking at case by case basis for people who were effected by these trades rather than just shutting down the idea entirely. The thread also had a poll OVERWHELMINGLY AGREEING TO FORGIVE THE DEBT. Even people not harmed by the hackers agreed NO ONE SHOULD GO INTO REAL CURRENCY DEBT OVER VIRTUAL PETS. And I stand with that.

I stand with anyone who was effected by reverse trade. Though I was lucky and got compensated and had it resolved on that front I still will advocate for others who aren't artists and are still in debt or now are missing pets over this issue.

[Celozon]

Everyone please remember to stay on topic, I'm seeing some posts more than others that are either entirely off-topic or veering so. Please remember this is a suggestion thread and the discussion should be on the suggestion itself.

-snip-
These unsuspecting people who were simply trading like normal are now in crippling debt AND OWE CS MONEY for something out of their control. I put in a support ticket and within 48 hours I was compensated, but I've heard some people went THOUSANDS of c$ into debt over the reverse trades. Keep in mind even if only 2 accounts were hacked those hackers were doing upwards of 20+ trades all with different users and they were ALL EFFECTED. People traded pets and gifts and c$ away thinking it was legit only to have it snatched away and now they owe REAL CURRENCY because they are in debt over something out of their control. There was a thread up about this, but it was locked by staff after they basically told people that "people will try and exploit this system" when no one could have known this was happening. It turned into what I felt was victim blaming. Telling someone who just had pets or real currency taken from them are now being told "well someone will try and exploit this or could exploit this so we just don't wanna do it at all" seemed very disheartening to a lot of people. This was a week long incident basically and I feel staff should be looking at case by case basis for people who were effected by these trades rather than just shutting down the idea entirely. The thread also had a poll OVERWHELMINGLY AGREEING TO FORGIVE THE DEBT. Even people not harmed by the hackers agreed NO ONE SHOULD GO INTO REAL CURRENCY DEBT OVER VIRTUAL PETS. And I stand with that.

I stand with anyone who was effected by reverse trade. Though I was lucky and got compensated and had it resolved on that front I still will advocate for others who aren't artists and are still in debt or now are missing pets over this issue.

Once more; no one is being forced or would ever be forced to pay real money if their C$ balance is in the negative. No one is in real life debt to CS. No one owes CS real money. I would like to request that people stop spreading this idea as we have had to tell people multiple times now on these threads that this is not the case and is causing many users to become alarmed over something that is not true. Beyond being able to trade for C$ normally, staff have provided multiple different options (seen here) to relieve the negative balance, none of which require spending real money. None of us are saying this is a great situation to be in or that user's opinions about it aren't valid, but the facts are that we do provide various options for the user and I do feel it is a misrepresentation of the situation to talk about the C$ debt situation without acknowledging that there are other options.

One of these options is, for all intents and purposes, the same as reversing the trade in which the C$ was spent so that the user's account is reverted to its original state before receiving the C$ from the compromised account. This is what already happens with all the trades involving pets via trade reversals, that process is just unable to be automated with C$ like it is with pets since C$ doesn't have unique IDs (for obvious reasons). All it is doing is 'fixing' the missed trade in the reversal process, the only difference being that it is voluntary. I can understand being against this if you are against all trade reversals, and its fine to have that opinion, but assuming you are of the opinion that trade reversals involving stolen pets distributed to other accounts are acceptable, then this should also be an acceptable solution for stolen C$.

[Darni]

-snip-

This discussion is the topic of transparency and I was simply relaying information and being transparent on the subject. I explained how I saw the "Pardon C$ Debt" thread and made sure to include I FEEL rather than pointing accusations. This was also a response to someone asking to explain the artist part which is on topic. Hope this helps :3

EDIT: Reread whole thing and saw they meant a different situation with artists which is my bad I just missed a couple words. I would also like to hear on the other situation involving artist compensation because now I'm even curious. If that's off topic though if anyone could link the thread or DM me discussing it that's cool too or I could just stay in the dark like either way c:

[Lex.]

-snip-

This discussion is the topic of transparency and I was simply relaying information and being transparent on the subject. I explained how I saw the "Pardon C$ Debt" thread and made sure to include I FEEL rather than pointing accusations. This was also a response to someone asking to explain the artist part which is on topic. Hope this helps :3

Thank you for that! [I was actually asking about a different instance, the discrepancies on how CS Artists are paid/reimbursed!] But you post and the response to it almost illustrated PERFECTLY the issue at hand.
Just because there are options to not pay money to get out of debt, it doesn't change the fact that the feature cannot be used until it is topped off. In my mind I still can't even find a reason to have balances at 0.
To connect that back to transparency, how come this option wasn't offered from the start? Because of the LACK of transparency/communication, people were panicking about their balances.
I'm glad there IS a solution. I'm NOT glad that it took as long as it did for admins to say anything. I'm NOT glad with the still ongoing lack of consistency with everything CS related in general.
That's why there was an issue with CS Artist compensation/payment. There was NO clear answer to any question, or at least no answers that were consistent and the same. Same with the oekaki locks. I was there, and do remember it!

Overall, I do appreciate staff for putting the time in for us all. I personally feel like not all staff are on the same page when it comes to things, as last night I got 2 very different responses to the same instance from 2 different staff members. No hate at all for that, we all make mistakes. The issue is that this is fairly common. It seems that not all lower ranking staff receive the same information. And all staff handle situations differently, which is another big inconsistency issue. Some posts get away with rule breaking content, others don't. I understand that user reports are the driving factor for these edits/take downs, but shouldn't they [staff in this case] also be wary of similar posts on the same thread?
If it's an issue with having too few mods, take some more qualified users onto the team [as in "hire" more staff]. If it's an issue with it just being 1-off reports, then why not have staff also browse 1-3 pages before and after a flagged post, just to be sure nothing was missed?

Again, 0 hate towards any General Helpers/Global Mods/etc. It's a tough thing to do, and I do have respect for you all seeing as how you volunteered anyway even though it's not easy.
I just wish things behind the curtains were more consistent, and of course, more transparent! Things that need to be out in the open are not. It seems there lacks a baseline for certain rules/regulation on certain threads as well.
Staff and Users cannot be on the same level of understanding, or even on the same level, if users are not being communicated to when it's needed.

[Darni]

-snip-

Sorry I keep snipping, but I get overwhelmed at a ton of text sometimes when I'm trying to type stuff and it messes with me. I realized it was a different topic and added an edit. I appreciate your wording on all your messages by the way because you type very well and structure things in an easy format for some people. I had a long day and I was reading your message and missed a part of it (pretty sure I was watching something while reading so that's on me being silly!) so I added an edit c:

[Lex.]

-snip-

Sorry I keep snipping, but I get overwhelmed at a ton of text sometimes when I'm trying to type stuff and it messes with me. I realized it was a different topic and added an edit. I appreciate your wording on all your messages by the way because you type very well and structure things in an easy format for some people. I had a long day and I was reading your message and missed a part of it (pretty sure I was watching something while reading so that's on me being silly!) so I added an edit c:

That's totally ok! <3
And thank you so much! When I write those long messages I try my best to use the right wording and clarify as much as possible, just so there's as little issues/misunderstandings as possible :)

[Celozon]

This discussion is the topic of transparency and I was simply relaying information and being transparent on the subject. I explained how I saw the "Pardon C$ Debt" thread and made sure to include I FEEL rather than pointing accusations. This was also a response to someone asking to explain the artist part which is on topic. Hope this helps :3

Sorry but I hadn't seen anywhere in your post that you mentioned that this was just your opinion on what happened, though I did see several statements that said users 'owe CS money'. While I was looking through some other posts I saw you've replied to me on another thread where I specifically pointed out that no one owes CS real money and where I suggested affected users send in a help ticket to admins to discuss other options. You also mentioned the thread was locked, so I assume you also saw the post made by staff when the thread was locked that specifically talked about those options. But I do apologize if you just didn't know about those and as a result failed to mention them ^^

Just because there are options to not pay money to get out of debt, it doesn't change the fact that the feature cannot be used until it is topped off. In my mind I still can't even find a reason to have balances at 0.
To connect that back to transparency, how come this option wasn't offered from the start? Because of the LACK of transparency/communication, people were panicking about their balances.
I'm glad there IS a solution. I'm NOT glad that it took as long as it did for admins to say anything. I'm NOT glad with the still ongoing lack of consistency with everything CS related in general.

There were always other options for rectifying a negative C$ balance. From the very beginning we asked users were were experiencing that to contact staff through the help ticket system so they could talk with admins individually on what their options were. As I mentioned, a lot of the panic came from users misrepresenting the situation, assuming the worst, and dismissing staff's replies. The options were later posted publicly since there was still a lot of misinformation circulating about it (and still is unfortunately). It does seem a lot of users believe more people had a negative C$ balance than there really were. I understand this might not be something a lot of user's realize, but this sort of thing typically doesn't need to be public info and is just worked out with the users on a case-by-case basis for what works best for them, as is a lot of other things staff deal with. There really isn't any need for the average user to know about it because its extremely unlikely to ever affect them, and if it does, we would ask them to send in a ticket in which the options would be presented to them, which is what we did.

I do feel that some users are expecting that 'transparency' means knowing 100% of what happens 'behind the scenes'. This is never going to be the case, having 100% transparency would be a huge security risk just for starters, beyond other obvious concerns like making it easier for user's to circumvent rules, etc. I don't think everyone here is expecting that but it is sometimes unclear on exactly what users are expecting with transparency. So perhaps the discussion needs to be on what should be considered 'necessary transparency'. What information is necessary for the entire userbase to know about vs what is necessary for individuals to know about when it personally impacts them.

[Lex.]

The options were later posted publicly since there was still a lot of misinformation circulating about it (and still is unfortunately).

It would've helped if the admins posted on the main page, that way everyone knows for 100% certainty that there IS a way to get out of debt rather than inactive forum users discovering this still to this day.

What information is necessary for the entire userbase to know about vs what is necessary for individuals to know about when it personally impacts them.

Could you define something "personally impacting"? What's wrong with anything anyone has posted thus far?
And yes, there is misinformation, but there would be a lack of it if there was an announcement that addressed things. Misinformation spreads when information and fact is not readily available. I understand that GMs can't do that, though those with the abilities should have done something.

having 100% transparency would be a huge security risk just for starters, beyond other obvious concerns like making it easier for user's to circumvent rules, etc.

Clearly. When transparency is being talked about, I think it's clear that users aren't interested in every single PM staff get or the true inner workings like how the code works. Many users have given specific examples of situations that needs transparency, so I will not elaborate.