Web Earth Online

The way City Hall operates here on WEO has changed. I am concerned with one particular change, which seemed to occur silently and without being acknowledged by the community's eye as it was brought into affect. The public used to be able to reply to threads and reports on the City Hall board. However, currently, only moderators and City Hall officials have the access to do so. The community does not have the same permissions (literal forum permissions, which can be checked by scrolling to the bottom of the screen on any board) as it used to. The community's voice is being restricted.

Restricting the forum permissions has obvious benefits. Reports will appear much cleaner. With this restriction in place, the recent reports have normally consisted of the reporting player stating their case and providing a screen shot, followed by the current Judge or active moderator determining a punishment for the reported player. This often occurs without the words of the reported player, or other players involved in the various situations, ever being heard. With the ability of the community to reply restricted, the official Judge or moderator will only ever have the opportunity to hear half of the story; in the setup of this current system, unfair judgments could easily, albeit unknowingly, be made. This restriction has good intentions, but could be doing more harm than it is doing good.

I strongly support the concept of allowing the accused to defend themselves, and believe they should have the right to do so in means that are openly public. I request the community's opinions on the matter, along with WEO's reasoning as to why this restriction was put in place.

I agree with this. You should always looks at everyone's point of view before ever even considering a solution to a problem, and I'm sure some have wished to state their opinions in the past but could not due to the restriction. That could make a bad first impression to anyone who hasn't really used the forums.

Although I agree with the whole voice thing, the reason this was put into place was to stop other people from commenting, being rude, etc. On the old forums, that was a major problem since people would bash the one player for hitting the other, leave off topic comments, or just generally talk bad about others. If there is a way to avoid either the player on trial or the player who's defending themselves from yelling at one another, bashing, etc. then I would reconsider and talk to WEO about it. But right now, that's still a problem on the other forums in this board.

If you can think up a solution, I'll definitely have a look into it.

Understandably, voices must be restricted to an extent that is suitable for the atmosphere of the game and its players, and in accordance with the rules of the forum. However, complete restriction limits the ability of players to properly defend themselves. Perhaps there is a happy medium of controlled conversation? Alex's idea of setting up a ruling system of proper conduct when commenting on reports in City Hall sounds like the right idea. By stating that no bashing or arguments will be tolerated, and then strictly enforcing those rules, reported players will be allowed to defend themselves without the presence of arguments or off-topic statements.

Honestly, I believe the overall forum rules, as they are stated currently, are suitable for use in regulating "open" conversation on reports in City Hall.

- Arguing with others, or bringing others down with hateful comments

Any posts that incite arguments, bring others down, or that contain hateful comments could simply be deleted, and their owner's warned. This stricter enforcement and purging of unwelcome additions to the conversation will maintain the cleanness of reports.