Hey guys. It's WizO Tao. I know that I'm not the most liked guy in the world right now, but I wanted to post to clear a few things up. I am told that there is a post here somewhere complaining about me, but I cannot seem to find it. If the moderators need to move this to another forum where it will be more appropriate, they more than have my blessing.

First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of Che. He definitely does not speak for me, but I guess I can kind of understand his desire to "defend me". I sometimes wish he'd just let well enough alone, but there's not a lot I can do about that without telling him not to post at all. That's probably the ideal solution, but it really doesn't seem fair.

Secondly, I would like to apologize if my own actions seem to be inappropriate. I will, however, go on record as saying I have never handled a complaint from or in regards to either of my brothers or anyone else I know personally. To be truthful, it has only come up a handful of times, as I only work on the forums one day a week, and when I am covering other people's lunch breaks. I have other responsibilities that keep my attention elsewhere. I do, however, read through the SW miniatures forum at least once a week to compile a list of topics and questions that the community has so that I can submit them with my other reports. I wish I could give you more attention, but the day is only so long.

Thirdly, I would like to invite anyone who has any specific questions with the moderation on the Wizards of the Coast site to contact me, either through this thread or through email (tao@saga-edition.com). Anything I say here is completely off-the-record, and I am very limited in what I can and cannot say. I also cannot address any specific issues, but will gladly comment on general questions to the best of my ability. I would like to say that while I sometimes do not agree with some specific policies of Wizards of the Coast, they are my employers and they set the rules. However, ORCs do have a small measure of influence in specific moderation practices in that we can at least make suggestions that are guaranteed to make it to the ears of the people who do set the rules.

Lastly, I would like to let everyone know the specific repercussions of the events of the last few days. I will no longer be modding on the Star Wars miniatures boards, at least for a little while. This was my decision, but management was willing to agree to my request. It has nothing to do with not wanting to or not being able to, but everything to do with not wanting to present the possibility of impropriety. It wasn't an easy decision to make, because even though I can't post there anymore, I still enjoy it. However, I think that it was the right decision to make for the sake of the community.

I hope that helped clear the air a bit, but if not, please contact me and I am more than happy to discuss whatever I possibly can.

I welcome you to discuss things here. It takes balls to come here knowing some of us are upset by the practices that have been occurring. For this you certainly have my respect.

I am going to say though that although I understand family defending each other I dont understand your brother's posting. If you look back prior to his posting in various threads that started this week and look back at the last few months. Most of his major posting has been argumentative and appears to be directly aimed at picking a fight. That is fine. But he brings you discredit by doing so.

I would listen to anything he said if once and a while prior to this last week he posted something helpful. Did something helpful.

I am no Orc/Wizo I get paid nothing by Wizards but as the DCI Content manager I have worked my ass off for 2 years fighting DCI (who does not like Star Wars and never has) to better the game for everyone. I dont say this so you can bow down to me or kiss my arse. I say this because che's posting would carry a bit more credability if just once he did something for everyone in the community versus fighting or trying to pick one.

We are not saints. We fight amongst ourselves all the time and I mean all the time. I used to be one of the reasonable guys that tried to make peace. But I cannot say that now. I get in it too. But again in between fights we contribute..... more than I can say for Che.

I dont know who your other brother is only guess is Menoth Fire.......


Well I will continue this later I have to go see my 15 year get his first letter for his letter jacket

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I very much appreciate both your candor and your willingness to discuss what you can, off the record. You can be sure that I both respect that willingness, and will reciprocate the respect that shows to us and our grievances.

I also very much appreciate your willingness to take yourself away from the SWMs boards for the time being. That makes a world of difference in my eyes, and speaks a great deal for your professionalism.

Now, with that said, I also understand you cannot probably talk about this, but can you explain in any more detail, the logic behind Boris and I receiving bannings this past week. How did that come about, and how/why did it happen? Can we have any assurances that WotC will be looking into these events and making any adjustments to the modding practices?

Why are Che's posts inciting the community (not even me in particular) left intact, while we are being nit picked on technical violations?

Personally, I too would rather Che stops posting. I even asked him to willingly do so in PM last week. But I recognize his right to do so, and honestly, if he is simply willing to start contributing to the community, I am more than happy to have him around. It doesn't bother me, especially if he wants to continue in the way he has posted in the past week, offering help and being a positive influence (outside of the current issues of course).

I would also like to know what will be done to allow us to talk about mod issues. Its quite clear to me, has been for a while truth be told, that there needs to be some visible discussion option available. Secrecy has allowed the system to be ripe with abuse with no option for the "guilty" party to have any feedback, or ability to both defend themselves, or to even suggest to the mod in question that perhaps they missed something in their review of a report.

There needs to be some kind of way to actually talk back to the mods, without going to WotC_Sarah, without posting it in threads, but with at least the option of having something done publicly. It is clear that WotC is not willing to allow the Community Business Forum to do so, then we need somewhere to offer some feedback, to get some kind of answers, and to challenge problematic reports.

Unfortunately, I cannot talk about this publicly, even if Boris were to grant his consent. It would violate our privacy policy. What I can say was that the decision to begin cracking down on anything that might be fall under the banner of "Copyright Infringement" was made above our heads. In fact, it is the only violation that we can action without first receiving a report from a community member.

I suppose it is also safe to say that, in a general sense, once a person has received a certain number of soft (on the boards) or hard (through email) warnings, it doesn't matter what the violation is. Even minor violations can then result in 24 hour bans, and major violations can result in greater durations.

That I don't know. I wasn't involved in any of those violations. The first I learned of it was when I got a warning email in one of my accounts (due to a Gleemax error, that account is now linked to several different accounts).

I have asked him to stop posting on the Community Business forums, and he has agreed that it is a fair compromise. I think he'll stick to it.

We've actually tried it both ways. Back when Mike Lescault was around he set up a system of "radical transparency". It was a horrible failure, since it ended up filling entire forums with complaints that never got read by anyone that mattered. Since then we've switched to a "Contact Customer Service" method. I don't know that it's a lot better, but at least the complaints get to the people that need to make the decisions.

However, I will state this so that it's very clear in the future. Discussionand/or complaint concerning moderator actions in threads that aren't for that purpose, is considered disruption. It will get moderated 100% of the times that it is reported. It may not be good policy, but it is policy. In boards business forums, it is allowed provided that it is not insulting any specific moderators and does not result in harassment of other posters. Unfortunately, very few of the feedback threads meet those criteria, so they end up getting axed.

Personally, I miss the old PMs system. However, we're reeeeeally not supposed to talk through PMs (or off the record at all for that matter). There is however, one trick to the system which I will expose. If a message sent through the Customer Service system is a complaint, it gets passed onto our bosses, who typically respond with a "Sorry, but there's nothing we can do" type message, and then look into the incident (which usually contains enough screenshots and other evidence to cover our butts). However, if the message is a question about moderation we can field it ourselves. Now, that response may or may not be incredibly helpful all the time, but if it's ever a warning or suspension from me I will happily explain as much as I possibly can.

Oh... also... my other brother definitely is not Menoth's Fire. He's a friend of mine, and is in my RPG group and we play in the same Warhammer league... but that's as far as that relationship go. He's kind of a jerk, but he's actually a pretty lovable jerk once you get to know him.

I guess since it doesn't really hurt anything, and since he doesn't really post much anymore, it's safe to say that my other brother posted as Doogy King of the Dwarves (or something like that).

I appreciate you coming here as well, Tao. I certainly have nothing against you and have appreciated our many PMs over the last few months in my attempt to better understand the general stuff happening at WotC.

I think stepping down is the right decision given the situation, and I would point out that all of this could have been avoided if Che had simply done what he was asked to do during the trappedslider VCL issue, and that is to remove the libel (meaning false comment meant to defame others' reputations) content from his posts. He refused, and you and the other mods refused to remove it for him.

And yet I was accused of "gunning for the mods" by making a one-line statement of fact that caused me to get banned for a day. Meanwhile, I counted no less than 41 similar posts about board moderation and its inconsistencies on the general forum TODAY, meaning they are all still intact. In none of those examples was anyone ever warned nor their comments edited. Certainly no one was banned for the comments.

Personally, I don't think you should ever return as a mod to SWM as long as you have family members posting there. It creates a conflict of interest for you and there are certainly enough other locations that you can moderate without having to deal with that dilemma.

I also noted that you did not specifically say you had nothing to do with mine or Bill's one day ban. Whether that was by design or an oversight, I don't know. But if you didn't have anything to do with it, then I would certainly appreciate it if you said so, because from the information I've been gathering, there is enough to suggest that you did have something to do with it. I hope that you did not.

If they were in general areas and were reported they would be removed, and the users would receive warnings.

I can say that I had absolutely nothing to do with Bill's ban, nor did I know that Bill had been banned until I read his posts. I was aware of your ban, and handled the initial complaint (which was not filed by anyone I know personally), including screenshoting and removing the post. The final decision on how it would affect your account, however, was not made by me. That's about as specific as I can get (and probably moreso).

The willingness to come on to here and talk to us like this says a lot and I thank you as well.

1) thank you for only deleting the post of pics in the JEDI ACADEMY - unofficial set list and discussion. Their was a lot of info in that thread and their would of been a even bigger uprising if that did happen

2) When reporting a post does the MOD read the entire post or just the entry that was reported. It does seem like the original batting post stays and the person who fires back at it get in trouble. If their is more than one report in a thread does it just show the thread or the post itself.

3) Is their a procedure that tells when and how long to ban someone. If someone has been warn is their a way for the MOD to see that.

4) If someone is reporting people left and right or the same person and the reports are not all that offensive or batting or trolling does the reporter get a message to calm down or back off.

Those are some questions that I think would be useful to know and helpful but it really seems like that Boris, Bill, and Dean get a lot of slack becasue they are the most active members on the board. The biggest thing is their are tempers that flare in some heated discussions such as the GOWK thread. Also the thraed you are looking for about the MODS at Wizos is on the Galatic Senate page here viewtopic.php?f=48&t=6400

You're welcome. I try to have as light a hand as possible, and it's nice that people appreciate it.

At the very least, we follow any quotations backwards and read any posts that followed the reporting post to see if anyone quoted them. That is the requirement. Unless things are absurdly busy, I also like to read the original post and at least skim the rest of the thread.

Yes. There is an internal document which contains the punishment for infractions. These punishments range from a soft warning (one posted in a thread) to permanent (IP based) banning. There are also "Levels" of offenses, which are determined based on a user's past history and the content of the reported posts. All warns are entered into a database with the user's other information and all warns include (at the very least) a screenshot and a private note containing an explanation for the action as evidence.

No. We never discourage people from submitting warns. However, there are some people who report enough that their names are known to the moderators (moreso on other sections of the boards). Their reports are never ignored, but sometimes they give us a good chuckle.

I understand that, but unfortunately there's no way to take into account a poster's activity in determining CoC violations. There have been suggestions before that have include "Karma" ratings that would allow users to grant each other "Karma" to unlock custom titles and avatars, and having negative Karma affect how incidents were handled, but it was decided that it could only end in one of two ways: the boards would become a wild mob or they would become a popularity contest. Neither of which was acceptable. For now, we've got what we've got, and we do the best we can with it.

Which violation? There were two listed. One was the comment directly in response to your statement about posting spoilers, which was NOT meant as an attack on you or anything of the sort. It was simply a statement of fact that several others agreed with. I wonder, where those people warned, too? I know you cannot answer that because of the confidentiality, but I would be very surprised if they were.

The second stated violation was a very polite and humble request for trappedslider to stop posting baiting material. I have spoken to him about it via PM and while he says he didn't do it, he sure did seem to know a lot about what happened. More than he probably should if he didn't report it. But he has apologized and I have apologized and that is the end of that.

Ultimately, the fact still remains that I no longer feel safe to post on WotC, not if things I write are going to be misconstrued and twisted in order to achieve personal vendettas against me.

This was the one that I handled. I can say that notes were made on other accounts, but I don't know of any other bans. Like I said, the current system of moderation places a LOT of weight on past behavior.

Because it was a reply to one of my posts, I had another ORC decide if it was a violation or not. However, after dealing with the chat support on Magic Online ORCs have really thick skin, so your post wasn't interpreted as an attack in any way and it wasn't deleted for harassment. It was simply deleted as being off-topic and derailing the thread. The fact that all those other people posted in agreement is really what sealed the deal. If it was just a single off-topic post I may have been able to sweep it under the rug, but once it gets to the point of derailing a thread, there's not a lot else I can do. I left everything I possibly could intact. Our only other option would have been to let it go and hope that the discussion got back on topic before it got any more reports. If we left it open and it continued to be off-topic, it would have likely had to be closed down for VCL review.

I know it's not what everyone wants to hear, but if it was a response to any other ORC's post in a general area I probably would have made the same decision. Complaints about moderation are too distracting to just let stand in a thread. Once people get started on that path, it ends up being really hard to get them back on topic. It's probably not the popular decision, but for the health of the community, I think it's the right one.

That doesn't mean I am opposed to having discussions like this about moderation. I just don't want to lose good threads to it.

That one I do not really know about. I did notice it on your account, but I didn't open it to examine it in detail. Sorry.

Tao, I think this is where we all start to get a bit hung up. The post in question here, where Boris 'questioned' your actions as a moderator, was nearly a WEEK old when he got banned for it. So, the post was allowed to be up there for several days, and multiple people replied to Boris' post afterwards, agreeing with his sentiments, and yet none of those were edited/deleted.

So something made a change between when Boris originally made that post, and earlier this week when he received the ban. Because it would appear that nobody had a problem with this particular post when it was originally made.

I guess that's probably the one thing that has several of us confused, and instead leaning towards theories that someone was "out to get Boris", because of the timing of everything.

Again, it's one of those things were it also comes off as appearing that whatever Mod was involved, didn't read through anything else involved. One person had action against them, and that was it, when there were several other people involved.

Same thing happen with Billiv15's 24-hr ban from the 'Thread Nuking' thread. Bill was trying to tell other people to be LESS 'disruptive' and ignore posts by other members. But Bill ended up getting the ban for it.

Just doesn't make any sense. And when several of us emailed Customer Service saying it didn't make sense, we all got a form letter back saying more or less "Sorry you don't agree with us. Tough luck."

Hard to accept that kind of stuff.

But right now the way the threads have been modded it is causing a major upstir that is doing just this. People are now more focused on the modding more than ever becasue they are seeing it more and more and are realizing it.

It may be that the solution is to change WotC policy to encourage people to take their grievances to the party affected first, and only use the report button for cases of harassment and actual abuse. People using it for technical CoC violations, which as a mod, I think you will understand, happen all the time and on a regular basis go unpunished - and not just by me, but by any poster.

I understand the need for secrecy in cases where retaliation or actual harassment are concerned, but its broken in the way you guys employ it.

Heck, even if it were a third party response. I know if an ORC sent me a PM, asking me to remove something or reword it or whatever, i would be happy to. In fact, there are many posters who do this very thing already. I would think it might be worth considering as a mod team encouraging reporters to go to the person in question before action is taken, especially in mild cases.

On that note, I also think report button abuse needs to be dealt with. Simply ignoring people who cry wolf isn't enough. In my case for example, two years ago a poster followed me around, and reported everything I posted (he did other things but this is the relevant part to this discussion). WotC's response was to ban Billiv15 permanently, and I only was able to get my account back because the person responsible admitted his behavior in PMs to someone else. I made a big deal about it then, talked about it extensively with mods, and yet here we are, still having this problem.

The report button should not be a toy that someone pushes whenever they feel like without repercussion. You should have a similar system in place for banning and warning abusers as well, and I don't just mean people who just hit the button too much, but for those who use it as a way to get others.

I propose the following. If a report is made, that is not actioned on at that time, and is deemed not to be problem, an email goes to the reporter, same as if he were receiving a warning. Assign an appropriate number in a week to determine a temp. ban, perhaps 5. Set up a similar system that tracks who a given poster is reporting, and if they are constantly reporting the same person, give them a warning or ban, especially if those offenses being reported are commonplace CoC technical violations on the boards.

That's probably the primary issue here. I know there is a nice statement that tells people what the report button is for when you click it. I also know the majority of posters do not use it in the way that warning describes. I also know that there are very very few negative consequences to someone who does, and who can do so in secret, and so on.

For reference, here is the sentence I am referring to that comes up when you hit the report button.

Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.

I would like to see an reports that are not categorized as any of the above to be deemed and improper use of the report button and tracked on the user, and eventually acted on as needed.

well I got a warning for starting a thread and threatened with a ban and account deletion. So I am done there

I did send a question to CS asking that if I was banned can I still get into the judges center and work on my DCI stuff. But like Dennis I will not post where I am threatened with a banning when others can get away with murder.

Of course I noticed that none other than Eleven Shae has come out of the wood work just like Che to argue.


By the way I got a warning for covering up the word f**k

But eleven shae did it in his post..... wonder how long that stays up!!!!! probably forever

Yep, and while some people might say Bill should have minded his tongue and not take bait, would it really matter? Look at the stuff that got me my one-day ban. Nothing in it was harsh or inflammatory or met any other stated CoC violation that I can see, and I went out of my way to be respectful to trapped in the post that someone reported (though he says he didn't do it).

Revenge is the name of the game. Look at this, it's part of a PM trapped sent me on WotC (I'm not going to share the whole thing so please don't ask me to):

The notion that it was "off-topic" amused me since it immediately followed the chain of the posts.



And yet look at that thread today. Even with my posts and a few others removed, discussion in that thread still centers on moderation practices and policies regarding spoilers. It's as "off-topic" now as it was when I posted the statement that got me banned. This is bullshit.



Really? For the health of the community? And how's that working out for you? You guys - and I mean ORCs in general, not just you - are wasting all of your time quashing threads and posts that seek nothing more than better understanding of what the hell is really going on with the sudden gestapo-like tactics over there. It's not bad enough that you guys act like secret police, now people aren't even allowed to discuss that you're acting like secret police. It's stupid and it's just going to continue to exacerbate the situation until it finally starts affecting sales.



Well maybe you feel that way but somebody doesn't because threads - even in the community business section - on this subject are being frequently locked and/or deleted. And not all of them are being started by Bill or Dean or me at this point.

Meanwhile, we have threads on the general message boards that violate the CoC or board policy regarding where things are supposed to be posted and despite them being reported, they are still there.

Tao - the result of this, is WotC will likely lose Boris, Dnemiller, myself and multiple others as regular contributors. I know I've about had it, and you can thank your brother for that. As much as I am often willing to be the lightning rod, and as much as it has been good for the community in the past for me to do so, I am at a point where I am just not sure it's worth it any longer.

I will probably reserve my posting from here on out to telling new players where to find other resources (like gamers) and direct them there instead of WotC Forums. I honestly don't see much other purpose to me posting over there any longer. Your brother, together with the bolstering he has received from the mod actions, has convinced too many people that I am bad for the community. So be it, I've about had it anyways, and I for one can take a lot generally speaking. And you can thank your brother for that contribution to the community - so I guess we can no longer say he has not done anything anymore.

There is only so many times a person is willing to see lies that are easily disproved about me posted as if they were facts, and no mod action taken to remove them before that person just gives up. At some point, you would think you guys would actually do something about it, but after 3+ years of trying, I think I am finally at a loss. Hell, you guys haven't really even improved the very abuses that got me personally banned a couple of years ago, so why I've been dealing with it all this time, I sort of have no idea.

I am unsure of the post to which you are referring, and I think you are mistaken as to which post resulted in moderation. The post which was deleted was in response to my post on Tuesday evening. It was less than 24hrs old when it was deleted.

My post on the matter can be found here:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st18559812

You are incorrect on both accounts. I'd like to be more diplomatic on this, but I don't know how else to say it. Both of those statements are untrue.

I believe that there may be some confusion on where the post was taken from. I will include a link to the thread in question:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1074880

The prior posts were discussing the upcoming set. There was a post which included a link to images of Jedi Academy and several follow-ups, which were all removed with a note. There was your post claiming that this was inconsistent with boards policy, and a few others who agreed with you. Those posts were pruned or deleted, the posters informed that it was off-topic, and the discussion is now once again about Jedi Academy. There was (another) poster who added pictures, and it was dealt with in a manner consistent to that most recently put into place: they were removed as soon as they were reported.

I understand that you are upset, and perhaps you are justified in those feelings. However, there is nothing any of us can do about it at this point except try to make sure it doesn't happen again.



I am here to try to explain why some things happened the way that they did so that they aren't repeated and so that other posters aren't caught unawares. I am not here to justify my actions, nor am I here to make excuses for WotC policy or the actions of other ORCs. If that's the way things are going to go, then I am afraid I can't participate any further. I am doing this on what little free time I have, and if I don't feel that it is a positive experience for everyone involved then I would prefer not to waste everyone's time.