Should non-optimal strategy like rushing BB be considered griefing. This didn't seem fair to his team. Holding over 50k metal hostage, and not having an impact at all for the first 20 minutes of the game. moep has over 5k games played so this is a little ridiculous to say the least.

quote: Holding over 50k metal hostage,

could you elaborate that in detail? in storages? in unfinished projects?

The answer is to report them. People being reported is a good signal that people don't want to play with them.

quote: So far it's been communicated to us (over the course of our discourse on the forum/discord/lobby) that people who make "pointless reports" or however the wording was (it's been a while, admittedly) generally don't have their reports looked into. See the discussion with FIrankKapy (was it?) recently

If we are thinking of the same conversation here, that was in the context of one-word reports (and other reports that look like shitposts), which we get quite a few of, and very few of them turn out (as best we can tell) to have anything substantive behind them.

(Barring the occasional mistake or oversight,) we investigate every report which contains enough information to tell us what, where and when we are meant to look, no matter who sent it. If the report is lacking those details, then chasing the report down is a LOT more work and is far more likely to be a waste of our time. At that point some judgment of "is this reporter likely to be wasting my time or not" does come into play.

Making reports of events which you have accurately represented, but which the admins decide does not rise to the level of being modactionable, does not make us think that you have wasted our time. Sending us on a wild goose chase looking for an event that didn't actually happen is more of a problem.

quote: When users report something, they need some feedback mechanism that their reports are effective.

If an individual sends in reports about another user that they find distasteful, but nobody else cares about the second user's behaviour, then their reports may not be (and sometimes should not be) effective.

If an individual sends in reports about another user that they find distasteful, and a bunch of other people also send in reports, then their reports potentially should be effective.

There is no way for the admins to know the difference between those two scenarios until all the reports come in. I don't see how we can have a "feedback mechanism" based on something that hasn't happened yet at the time of the initial reports.

quote: When people see you (the moderators) not "doing anything" because you've chosen to wait and see if it becomes a bigger issue, people lose faith in the system.

Catch-22. We're not doing anything because we're not getting usable reports.

In this specific case I am quite sure that there are quite a few people in the community who would defend moepmoep's style of play. For us to do something despite those people's opinions, I think we would need to be very sure that a very large section of the community is very sick of moepmoep's conduct. We don't have anywhere close to the required amount of evidence to support that.

On the other hand, when BotWIz accrued enough reports from a wide enough range of people he got well and truly modactioned.

There are big problems with a rigid report feedback system.

• It would make moderators do more work.
• The relationship between reports and actions are often fuzzy.
• Infra mana.

Some reports are straightforward. A clear case of griefing often generates a few reports in quick succession, which is a signal that the case is pretty simple. A report pointing to a particular clearly bad action goes on the ledger and probably gets at least a warning.

Many reports are not simple, and those are the ones with the feedback issue. They aren't tickets that are opened then closed or resolved. They are bits of feedback or a pointer that something may need looking into. If someone receives ten reports from ten different people over the course of a week, then the quality of report or individual actions behind each one barely matters. The player is clearly doing something that makes the game worse for a significant number of players. It doesn't matter if there is a rule about what they are doing, the fundamental rule of ZK is to avoid having your potential departure increase the general enjoyment of the game.

One fuzzy report is not the same as ten. Lots of people will annoy someone on occasion. Multiple reports are required to distinguish between two people not getting along, and a player who consistently annoys people to the point that moderation should try to curb the behaviour.

quote: These little things aren't going to bring upon modaction nor would I reasonably expect them to be modactioned. For instance, I quite find the people signal boosting bad behavior annoying and detrimental to the overall health of the community, but it's not going to get modactioned and I'm aware I'm in the minority opinion of being tired of such antics. Why would I report such behaviors? I can call out those behaviors, and maybe see how others feel so I can get encouraged to start making such reports (as we're seeing with UnLuky here).

That is a different discussion. Keep calling out bad behaviour when it's minor stuff that can be addressed with pushback and norms. Calling things out is good for trying to set a standard around grey areas. Send reports for things that you might reasonably expect would require moderator action. Perhaps calling out the behaviour isn't working in a specific case, or it is beyond a grey area. UnLuky seemed to be talking about something that could need moderation action, rather than calling out behaviour.

quote: So far it's been communicated to us (over the course of our discourse on the forum/discord/lobby) that people who make "pointless reports" or however the wording was (it's been a while, admittedly) generally don't have their reports looked into.

People who worry about their reports being pointless don't tend to be the people who send pointless reports. I occasionally PM people who seem to be legitimately trying but need to improve a report.