Shoutbox Etiquette

I wanted to have an open conversation with the membership here concerning the state of the shoutbox. Increasingly, I have seen complaints about the kind of content there. I invite you to add your opinion and vote on this thread to let us know how you want the shoutbox to be.

I fully agree rayven everyone should git along and be kind to who ever it maybe. This is not hard thing to ask .

yea well that isnt always so easy for some people. I think that you should have to have an account to use the shoutbox. and ofc im horribly guilty of using profane words, being as the game is rated M i would assume those that play it consider themself Mature.. and therefor able to block or ignore the things they wish not to see. However having said that, being as i myself have been blasted on the shoutbox lately, i suppose there does need to be a limit or something lol.

Vulgarity is very hard to escape in this day and age. I don't agree with walking around saying Eff this or Sheet, Mo'fo'ing sonnbitch (see, I can use the words, too, but I choose not to), but it doesn't mean that I notice it all the time. I see that the most popular word in the English language has been censored which is good.
My one and only complaint though, it the idea that the shoutbox should be allowed for spamming things that are obviously meant to annoy instead of entertain. There are trolls out there that use the shoutbox as a means of pushing buttons. I don't like this activity as all, as the shoutbox is a social tool meant for getting along with each other. It is not a form of advertising what you want every hour on the hour. If you don't know, I'm talking about the eggs. I don't mind that someone says, Hey I'm posting an egg. every once a day or something, but if it's like four or five eggs and you're telling someone to click each of them like clockwork, then no.

I can attest that the box gets a little rowdy at times, but everything ive read (and posted) is meant to be comical. I personally have been in a few non-game related "arguments", and nothing has gotten out of hand in terms of language. People seem mature and intelligent enough to defend their points without getting evil. Spamming is probably the most annoying thing on here. Treasurehunter pretty much hit the nail on the head with that. Outside of spam and bad-intent discrimination towards members, the box should be left as is. That being said, I can only speak for the content I have seen. My 2 cents

ReaperEOD said:

. Larkie is an exception though. =P

>.<

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to every rule baby! i come with a disclaimer.. we all know that

Well, if we didn't have the shoutbox we wouldn't be a very social forum now would we? I'm sure everyones seen or said a swear word before, so why forbid something we use every day? I have seen many guests sign up after talking to us in the shoutbox, and if they don't post there as guests where will they post? As for images, I may see why people would be offended by vulgar images, but u dont have to delete imaging entirely. Offending people? I know i may be a hypocrit about this but insulting someone who gave u nothing to argue about is just unfair, espeially if theyre knew or youve never met him.
Anyway, these are my rubbishy thoughts, just wanted to contribute

I don't think it is feasible to block out all profanities or insults, etc and arguably, it would be best left uncensored. However, I do get annoyed by images posted on shoutbox. It's distracting for me and it takes a whole chunk of space of that tiny box of texts. Not to mention, it's abusive and I rarely find it necessary, especially with reaction pics. Just throwing out my opinion out there.

Thank you for the responses so far. Here's my take on it.

I still hate censorship. I do not have any desire to be the word police, thought police or any other kind of fun-squashing dictator. One of the things I personally love about this forum is the fact that it's not filled with a bunch of egomaniacal boobs who feel important when they get to ban someone or ruin someone else's day. There are other forums like that and I think the membership here has done an excellent job of setting this site above others by sheer force of personality.

I do think the shoutbox serves as a major facet of advertising the type of site we have. I have always been against limiting Guest input on the shoutbox because I feel that letting them come on and ask questions sets us apart. The fact that a Guest can come on, ask something and actually get a real answer to a game issue makes us different. It has also caused many Guests to make accounts because they want to be part of this place. I know we have had the one particular moron come on some days but I do not advocate removing the ability of all Guests to participate on the basis of one person's bad judgement. To me, that's like punishing everyone for a deed only one person committed.

The same goes for the complaints about the dragon eggs. One or two people seem to spam them, then 5 or 6 people contribute lines saying how obnoxious it is then we end up with 3 screens of scrollback containing 1 egg and a myriad of unhappy responses. Repeat every 5 hours or so. I would like to suggest that perhaps a lack of reaction may be the best course.

If we start banning this and that, I think we begin to travel a slippery slope. I would prefer that wanton vulgarity, nudity and outright nastiness not happen in the shoutbox or anywhere else on the site. If we don't outright ban images (making it impossible to upload them), it means you want people like me to make judgement calls on content and ban or delete content and/or members. That's why I started this thread. I work for you and I want to make absolutely sure I understand your will. As you give me the parameters, I enforce them to the best of my ability. So far, we have been able to conduct ourselves in such a way as to not need extra rules and addenda and I would very much like to keep it that way. I think this approach allows everyone the ability to exercise their individualism within a framework of self-responsibility.

Rayven said:

The same goes for the complaints about the dragon eggs. One or two people seem to spam them, then 5 or 6 people contribute lines saying how obnoxious it is then we end up with 3 screens of scrollback containing 1 egg and a myriad of unhappy responses. Repeat every 5 hours or so. I would like to suggest that perhaps a lack of reaction may be the best course

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I try my best not to go on a tangent when I see an egg in the shoutbox for the reason that everyone else seems to make a comment about them, as well. There was that moment on Saturday where I did make a rant about it, but other than that I've just tried to hint that ignoring the eggs would be best. I used this place and space to log my complaint about the eggs since I really didn't know where else to put it without making myself to be an arse.
Thanks.

There is no reporting feature just for the shoutbox so contacting myself or Renegader directly is typically your best bet. And if neither of us is on, the only recourse is to let the offending content simply work its way off the backscroll. Obviously, if it's a certain member repeatedly doing something, we can step in and converse with the member directly. If people do choose to make a post to bring something to our attention, please make sure you do the @Renegader and @Rayven so we see an alert.

I haven't had much interest in using the Shoutbox but I watch it on occasion. I see no reason to censor profanity and it wouldn't help anyway since people will then find ways to get around it. I think images don't belong in there though. They are space hogs and the Shoutbox isn't very big to begin with. If it's primary purpose is for chatting then people can live without them. There are other areas available for posting pictures, including a chat thread in the Lobby.

Just my two Septims.

Perkless in Skyrim said:

I haven't had much interest in using the Shoutbox but I watch it on occasion. I see no reason to censor profanity and it wouldn't help anyway since people will then find ways to get around it. I think images don't belong in there though. They are space hogs and the Shoutbox isn't very big to begin with. If it's primary purpose is for chatting then people can live without them. There are other areas available for posting pictures, including a chat thread in the Lobby.

Just my two Septims.

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The shoutbox can be expanded. I usually have the shoutbox in one window/tab and the regular forums on another. So for me, pictures don't bother me. Making the shoutbox larger is a simple click away.

Maybe come up with a criteria for etiquette and have some members moderate lightly. Step in when things seem to be getting a bit combative and such.

I usually watch and glance now and then, but for the most part, I've kind of ducked out of it for several reasons.

SuperAxilla said:

Maybe come up with a criteria for etiquette and have some members moderate lightly. Step in when things seem to be getting a bit combative and such.

I usually watch and glance now and then, but for the most part, I've kind of ducked out of it for several reasons.

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Do you mean someone like a shoutbox moderater or something similiar,

Yeah, a shoutbox moderator. Although it would probably need to be more than one because it's 24/7. It would be tough, but maybe with enough people, it could be done.

Im ususally on the shoutbox every time im on the computer so I would be up to that.

A moderator for anything needs to be well respected and also follow the rules, like everyone else. If I had to make a vote, I'd say Andante should be one. However, this is Rayven and Ren's call, not ours.

Agree, but I would think there would need to be more than one for it to be effective. Andante would make an excellent moderator. Still, there would need to be more. Also whatever said "moderator" would need to set aside any personal idiosyncrasies or bias and would need to be moderated as well. That being one of the reasons why it would be important to have more than one. While monitoring shoutbox content, having more than just one would help to keep others in check and make sure that there is no monopolization from one sole moderator.

There is also the issue of what type of etiquette should be enforced and how. I don't like censorship, but I don't like to see conflict and others being hurt. Joking is one thing, but I've seen quite a few hurtful sarcastic remarks in many forum threads AND the shout box. As far as language, I don't know how to approach enforcing that, other than laying down some sort of "shout box language guidelines" (not to be crossed). Perhaps having a moderator simply present and known would prevent some of the spam, dragon eggs, language etc. I don't think banning from the shoutbox should be dealt out prolifically unless of course there is a clear case of malicious trolling. As far as having guests posting these dragon eggs and whatnot, maybe we'll need to give them the benefit of the doubt that they just don't know there is a separate thread just for that and inform them of this, instead of instantly verbally attacking them. IF there are to be rules or guidelines for the shoutbox to be implemented, then they need to be discussed (as we basically are now) and clearly laid out.

You guys really want the speech police? I'm surprised.