287 réponses à ce sujet

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Battlebloodmage wrote...

I still think that if it's for one time use, the wall works just fine.

Many mods and users have private profiles, making the wall impractical.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Jessica Merizan wrote...
{snip}

This is not a final solution. I do hear your concerns and want to let you know we are working toward something that better works for everyone. Right now, in the effort to be transparent, our limitations are in the software, but we are investigating better options to make this site useful for everyone.

The report link should now be working as intended. I do apologize for the potential need to create "temp" friendships in order to reduce the amount of forum spam, but you have my word that we are continuing to look into our options to make this site the best it can be.

I definitely welcome posts about how we may improve in this sub-forum or others as appropriate. We have more eyes on the forums now than we ever have before. That's because I believe in this community and am working to get you guys resources to flourish.
{snip}

Thanks for the information.

I'll paraphrase the initial PM questions I sent, since you answered some of it already.

1. As it stands now, is there a long-term plan to restore or replace the PM function?

2. For issues that require a developer (such as the "stuck challenges" issue for ME 3) is there an alternative in place for communicating with them?

3. Can any of security issues be addressed by expanding the options available under "privacy" settings?

I know that anytime the phrase "security issues" comes up, it's a safe bet that details will need to be kept under wraps (... for security:P... ) But I'm hoping there's a software solution in our future.

[DragonRacer]

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Battlebloodmage wrote...

I still think that if it's for one time use, the wall works just fine.

Many mods and users have private profiles, making the wall impractical.

Honestly, I find the wall impractical anyway. Navigating the thing is a chore and sometimes, new comments are at the top of the wall, sometimes new comments are at the bottom of the wall, and sometimes comments just flat-out disappear entirely.

I never use the comment wall unless I am responding to someone else's initial wall contact. It is literally a useless waste of space and I dread anytime I get a notification that someone has posted a new profile comment because God knows if I'll be able to find it. And responding back to another person's wall back-n-forth with no real frame of reference other than the useless, unviable wall itself.

No. Just no. PMs are simple, easy to use and understand, easy to find and refer back to, and keep all conversation contained in one nice, neat little area.

Or at least they used to. Guess I'd better go befriend the entire user list here so that I may continue to make use of this feature.

/bitternessincarnate

[CrutchCricket]

Jessica Merizan wrote...

Hey guys,

This change was my call due to some security and safety issues that have been reported to me over the past year. As some of our mods have already mentioned, along with the PM change, we have made some internal adjustments to the report link as well as given our moderators new guidance about how to handle and resolve those reports. Mods will now be looking at that first for important issues from you.

We have also added new moderators who are "unnamed" because they are primarily focused on making sure everyone is safe and following the site rules. This will give staff and named mods more time to engage in discussion with you guys (including me!) which I believe is a good thing. The unnamed mods are real people, however, so please treat them with the respect that I expect toward any user on this site. Feel free to give them joyful nicknames if it makes you feel more at ease

This is not a final solution. I do hear your concerns and want to let you know we are working toward something that better works for everyone. Right now, in the effort to be transparent, our limitations are in the software, but we are investigating better options to make this site useful for everyone.

The report link should now be working as intended. I do apologize for the potential need to create "temp" friendships in order to reduce the amount of forum spam, but you have my word that we are continuing to look into our options to make this site the best it can be.

I definitely welcome posts about how we may improve in this sub-forum or others as appropriate. We have more eyes on the forums now than we ever have before. That's because I believe in this community and am working to get you guys resources to flourish.

I'll also look into revising the pop-up change message (which I wrote) to make it more clear

I should go.
~Jessica (Community Team Lead)

Thanks for responding Jessica. Though I still sense two issues artificially being lumped into one.

1) Better moderation through the new report button and the anonymods (term coined by me for the lulz)
2) Restricting PMs?

The question we've all been asking (well some were asking about the anonymods but I for one get it) is what does one have to do with the other? I'm all for (1) but how do you get (2) from that? What possible purpose can restricticing PMs serve? You cite software limitations as the cause but I don't see the connection here.

[CrutchCricket]

Tarot Redhand wrote...

So let me get this straight. First blogging is restricted.

How has blogging been restricted? I never do it but I'm curious.

[jakenou]

Thanks for letting us know you're listening to/reading our feedback Jessica Merizan. Please drop in again and give us updates and maybe expand on some of the issues.

DragonRacer wrote...

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Battlebloodmage wrote...

I still think that if it's for one time use, the wall works just fine.

Many mods and users have private profiles, making the wall impractical.

Honestly, I find the wall impractical anyway. Navigating the thing is a chore and sometimes, new comments are at the top of the wall, sometimes new comments are at the bottom of the wall, and sometimes comments just flat-out disappear entirely.

I never use the comment wall unless I am responding to someone else's initial wall contact. It is literally a useless waste of space and I dread anytime I get a notification that someone has posted a new profile comment because God knows if I'll be able to find it. And responding back to another person's wall back-n-forth with no real frame of reference other than the useless, unviable wall itself.

No. Just no. PMs are simple, easy to use and understand, easy to find and refer back to, and keep all conversation contained in one nice, neat little area.

Or at least they used to. Guess I'd better go befriend the entire user list here so that I may continue to make use of this feature.

/bitternessincarnate

All of this - and I would add that there might be some things that I want to discuss with someone "privately" that I don't care for both their and my whole world of friends to be privy to or bothered with.

After a friending frenzy last night, I'm finding my feed to be a bit overwhelming and filled with things I don't really care much to read about. This brings up a whole other can of worms where the feed is limited to the last  X amount of friend activity. Too many friends + inadequate home feed + no PMing non-friends = BSN feels pretty broken right now. Now I want to unfriend a lot of people that have frequent posting activity that I'm not interested in, and that's just kind of awkward.

[Deerber]

Jessica Merizan wrote...

Hey guys, 

This change was my call due to some security and safety issues that have been reported to me over the past year. As some of our mods have already mentioned, along with the PM change, we have made some internal adjustments to the report link as well as given our moderators new guidance about how to handle and resolve those reports. Mods will now be looking at that first for important issues from you. 

We have also added new moderators who are "unnamed" because they are primarily focused on making sure everyone is safe and following the site rules. This will give staff and named mods more time to engage in discussion with you guys (including me!) which I believe is a good thing. The unnamed mods are real people, however, so please treat them with the respect that I expect toward any user on this site. Feel free to give them joyful nicknames if it makes you feel more at ease

This is not a final solution. I do hear your concerns and want to let you know we are working toward something that better works for everyone. Right now, in the effort to be transparent, our limitations are in the software, but we are investigating better options to make this site useful for everyone. 

The report link should now be working as intended. I do apologize for the potential need to create "temp" friendships in order to reduce the amount of forum spam, but you have my word that we are continuing to look into our options to make this site the best it can be. 

I definitely welcome posts about how we may improve in this sub-forum or others as appropriate. We have more eyes on the forums now than we ever have before. That's because I believe in this community and am working to get you guys resources to flourish. 

I'll also look into revising the pop-up change message (which I wrote) to make it more clear

I should go. 
~Jessica (Community Team Lead)

Jessica, first of all thank you very much for taking the time to write this, and for all the efforts that I'm sure you, as the community lead, and all the staff as well, put into this site. I know lots of people are being bitter now because they're let down by this choice (me among them), but that's just cause this site is such an amazing place that we have a hard time seeing it change for the worse. After all, we're all still discussing here after (for us ME3 MPers) more than a year, and to be honest... If it wasn't for BSN, I would have quit this game after just some months. I don't think I've ever played a MP game for so long and that's in a very vig part thanks to this site. And all that is due to your hard work, so you have my sincere thanks for that.

It's also nice to see you answering our question as to why this change was made, although in a... Pretty vague way, if I can say that  Saying that there are security issues sadly does not help many of us in understanding what's going on, and especially why those security issues and ties to PMs. I do understand that you might not be able to say more, though. And it's great to hear you're still working on it and that the change is not necessarily permanent. Again, thanks for the work you put into this.

About suggestions that might be useful (although I'm sure you guys already thought of this...), I tried to make one earlier. From reading mods' posts, it seems to me like the issue is with PMs being spammed to moderators. It's the only thing I can think of for why the PMs are related to the report button, at least. Well, if that is the case... Wouldn't it be possible to just disable PMs to moderators unless you're friend with them? That would still leave us able to PM at least  I'm sure someone thought of that, but I guess it doesn't hurt to share...

DragonRacer wrote...

Had I joined BSN today and not years ago, chances are I'd think there was no messaging system at all.

True. And, personally, I would have been let down a lot by that. Maybe, maybe... I wouldn't have stuck around BSN much, as I instead did.

DragonRacer wrote...

Honestly, I find the wall impractical anyway. Navigating the thing is a chore and sometimes, new comments are at the top of the wall, sometimes new comments are at the bottom of the wall, and sometimes comments just flat-out disappear entirely.

I never use the comment wall unless I am responding to someone else's initial wall contact. It is literally a useless waste of space and I dread anytime I get a notification that someone has posted a new profile comment because God knows if I'll be able to find it. And responding back to another person's wall back-n-forth with no real frame of reference other than the useless, unviable wall itself.

No. Just no. PMs are simple, easy to use and understand, easy to find and refer back to, and keep all conversation contained in one nice, neat little area. 

So much agreed. I never saw the point of the wall honestly. It's probably an attempt to make the site more friendly for fb-users, but I think it came out very bad. You already explained why. For example, I got an email some hours ago saying that you commented on my newsfeed. Damn it if I could find the comment anywhere on my profile or newsfeed.

[Jessica Merizan]

I do try to be as transparent as possible, but when it comes to internal security, that's an issue that I definitely can't delve into (As a Anthro major with an museum studies emphasis, I still strongly remember when our adviser told us she would be completely honest and candid about anything to do with museums... except security). Unfortunately, it might not feel like it, but it does ultimately protect you guys as well as BioWare. I also can't share information that would violate privacy issues with users.

All of your suggestions are great and like I said, right now our limitations are in software so we're doing the best we can now while we look into something more permanent. So to answer someone's question, no this is definitely not what I see as a long term solution and we do have a plan in place that is waiting on a few approvals to move forward.

I will also keep in mind the feedback about the "Wall". I suspect that software changes would also fix this issue.

Before I started at BioWare, I was a user on these forums. My priority is always the user experience and how to improve that. I'm sorry that we have and will have some stumbles along the way, but I do hope that you believe it is with the best of intentions I apologize again for any inconvenience this causes, but we are actively working to make this a better place.

I will start a second thread here looking for feedback on other issues on BSN you would like to see changed (similar to the wall etc).

[DragonRacer]

Deerber wrote...

DragonRacer wrote...

Honestly, I find the wall impractical anyway. Navigating the thing is a chore and sometimes, new comments are at the top of the wall, sometimes new comments are at the bottom of the wall, and sometimes comments just flat-out disappear entirely.

I never use the comment wall unless I am responding to someone else's initial wall contact. It is literally a useless waste of space and I dread anytime I get a notification that someone has posted a new profile comment because God knows if I'll be able to find it. And responding back to another person's wall back-n-forth with no real frame of reference other than the useless, unviable wall itself.

No. Just no. PMs are simple, easy to use and understand, easy to find and refer back to, and keep all conversation contained in one nice, neat little area. 

So much agreed. I never saw the point of the wall honestly. It's probably an attempt to make the site more friendly for fb-users, but I think it came out very bad. You already explained why. For example, I got an email some hours ago saying that you commented on my newsfeed. Damn it if I could find the comment anywhere on my profile or newsfeed.

Ah, I think we are confusing profile wall with comment wall. The profile wall is what I used on you. When I accepted your friend request, I went to your profile page where your most recent activity was "Deeber and DragonRacer became friends" and made the comment "Wow, totally thought we were already on each other's friends list. Oops." But the more you post in the forum and groups, the further down that gets pushed until it disappears entirely.

No, what I was really commenting on being dreadful is the "comments" section of one's profile. Go look at yours, for example, and try to navigate that thing. Go to your full profile. You'll see tabs called "Friends", "Comments", "Projects", etc. It's the "Comments" wall that I find utterly useless. It's back-n-forth with no context and impossible to follow.

[Battlebloodmage]

Is it possible for them to add a toggle where people can choose to receive PM from friends or everyone? It would fix the issue of harassment, as well as allowing people to communicate with whoever they want if they choose to.

[Deerber]

Jessica Merizan wrote...

I do try to be as transparent as possible, but when it comes to internal security, that's an issue that I definitely can't delve into (As a Anthro major with an museum studies emphasis, I still strongly remember when our adviser told us she would be completely honest and candid about anything to do with museums... except security). Unfortunately, it might not feel like it, but it does ultimately protect you guys as well as BioWare. I also can't share information that would violate privacy issues with users. 

All of your suggestions are great and like I said, right now our limitations are in software so we're doing the best we can now while we look into something more permanent. So to answer someone's question, no this is definitely not what I see as a long term solution and we do have a plan in place that is waiting on a few approvals to move forward. 

I will also keep in mind the feedback about the "Wall". I suspect that software changes would also fix this issue. 

Before I started at BioWare, I was a user on these forums. My priority is always the user experience and how to improve that. I'm sorry that we have and will have some stumbles along the way, but I do hope that you believe it is with the best of intentions I apologize again for any inconvenience this causes, but we are actively working to make this a better place. 

I will start a second thread here looking for feedback on other issues on BSN you would like to see changed (similar to the wall etc).

I, personally, do. I really do. I'm sure you're all doing stuff which you think is in the best interest of this community. And I perfectly understand if you can't talk anymore about the problem. I said what I said just in the case that you thought you shared enough for us to understand 

Okay so nice to know there's a plan in the making, I'm sure everything will get right in the end. Also, I'm looking forward to that new thread, I think it's gonna be very interesting for everyone.

DragonRacer wrote...

Deerber wrote...

DragonRacer wrote...

Honestly, I find the wall impractical anyway. Navigating the thing is a chore and sometimes, new comments are at the top of the wall, sometimes new comments are at the bottom of the wall, and sometimes comments just flat-out disappear entirely.

I never use the comment wall unless I am responding to someone else's initial wall contact. It is literally a useless waste of space and I dread anytime I get a notification that someone has posted a new profile comment because God knows if I'll be able to find it. And responding back to another person's wall back-n-forth with no real frame of reference other than the useless, unviable wall itself.

No. Just no. PMs are simple, easy to use and understand, easy to find and refer back to, and keep all conversation contained in one nice, neat little area. 

So much agreed. I never saw the point of the wall honestly. It's probably an attempt to make the site more friendly for fb-users, but I think it came out very bad. You already explained why. For example, I got an email some hours ago saying that you commented on my newsfeed. Damn it if I could find the comment anywhere on my profile or newsfeed.

Ah, I think we are confusing profile wall with comment wall. The profile wall is what I used on you. When I accepted your friend request, I went to your profile page where your most recent activity was "Deeber and DragonRacer became friends" and made the comment "Wow, totally thought we were already on each other's friends list. Oops." But the more you post in the forum and groups, the further down that gets pushed until it disappears entirely.

No, what I was really commenting on being dreadful is the "comments" section of one's profile. Go look at yours, for example, and try to navigate that thing. Go to your full profile. You'll see tabs called "Friends", "Comments", "Projects", etc. It's the "Comments" wall that I find utterly useless. It's back-n-forth with no context and impossible to follow.

Ah yes, I see. I was refering to the wall too actually, as I'm very aware of how dreadful it is to find a post there. I thought you posted on there and I couldn't find it, didn't think of the other way.

Which brings, as Jk says, another issue. The fact that you can comment on the newsfeed but, basically, if the person is not fast enough to watch the comment, it will be gone for good.

[Jessica Merizan]

Battlebloodmage wrote...

Is it possible for them to add a toggle where people can choose to receive PM from friends or everyone? It would fix the issue of harassment, as well as allowing people to communicate with whoever they want if they choose to.

Not with our current software limitations which is why I say this is not a long term solution. We are looking into other software that can make this and many other site features function much better

[Battlebloodmage]

Jessica Merizan wrote...

Battlebloodmage wrote...

Is it possible for them to add a toggle where people can choose to receive PM from friends or everyone? It would fix the issue of harassment, as well as allowing people to communicate with whoever they want if they choose to.

Not with our current software limitations which is why I say this is not a long term solution. We are looking into other software that can make this and many other site features function much better

Thanks for answering. Hopefully, it will all work out in the end. 

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

I am experiencing a sense of relief. :happy:

Modifié par Jeremiah12LGeek, 11 juin 2013 - 06:19 .

[eroeru]

RedArmyShogun wrote...

If that was the issue could have just you know...blocked people from PMing mods?..

Modifié par eroeru, 11 juin 2013 - 06:14 .

[CrutchCricket]

Jessica Merizan wrote...

Battlebloodmage wrote...

Is it possible for them to add a toggle where people can choose to receive PM from friends or everyone? It would fix the issue of harassment, as well as allowing people to communicate with whoever they want if they choose to.

Not with our current software limitations which is why I say this is not a long term solution. We are looking into other software that can make this and many other site features function much better

This is encouraging but I worry that the time to implement these improvements will prove to be "indefinite".

Well, nothing else I can say about it I guess. Thanks again for letting us know.

[Kidd]

If the problem is spam from bots, how about restricting the PM function to those who have one or more registered BioWare game? The bots wouldn't have that, and I don't think it's all too heavy a restriction. After all, you'll likely only be active enough in the community to PM when you have a registered game. It also wouldn't lead to problems where those who are experiencing issues registering their games would be unable to get help since the Answer HQ (where you go to ask for help with such things afaik) is a separate board.

This should also help alleviating any possible harrassment from single users with multiple accounts. A single person would not buy several copies of a game just to attack somebody. It's just not feasible.

Modifié par KiddDaBeauty, 11 juin 2013 - 07:49 .

[Battlebloodmage]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

If the problem is spam from bots, how about restricting the PM function to those who have one or more registered BioWare game? The bots wouldn't have that, and I don't think it's all too heavy a restriction. After all, you'll likely only be active enough in the community to PM when you have a registered game. It also wouldn't lead to problems where those who are experiencing issues registering their games would be unable to get help since the Answer HQ (where you go to ask for help with such things afaik) is a separate board.

This should also help alleviating any possible harrassment from single users with multiple accounts. A single person would not buy several copies of a game just to attack somebody. It's just not feasible.

Or they can use one of their registered games out of other games they bought and registered that for the second account, just presenting the possibilities here.

Anyway, as Bioware stated that they will look into the issue. I'm sure they will come up with a more permanent solution. 

[Ziegrif]

Jessica Merizan wrote...
Not with our current software limitations which is why I say this is not a long term solution. We are looking into other software that can make this and many other site features function much better

Good.
I'll trust you on this.
Btw please refrain from features that can give real life information to other users by choice or by accident, like youtube did by asking if we want to change our usernames to our real names, which surprised me.
I'm being paranoid I'll admit that but with stuff like this happening I kinda get even more paranoid.

[Fawx9]

Ziegrif wrote...

Jessica Merizan wrote...
Not with our current software limitations which is why I say this is not a long term solution. We are looking into other software that can make this and many other site features function much better

Good.
I'll trust you on this.
Btw please refrain from features that can give real life information to other users by choice or by accident, like youtube did by asking if we want to change our usernames to our real names, which surprised me.
I'm being paranoid I'll admit that but with stuff like this happening I kinda get even more paranoid.

Yes this is a terrible idea.

Blizzard tried it, it doesn't end well.

[Kidd]

Battlebloodmage wrote...

Or they can use one of their registered games out of other games they bought and registered that for the second account, just presenting the possibilities here.

You mean like if I was to create the account KiddDaFool, unregister my copy of ME2, then register it under KiddDaFool? I suppose that could happen. It shouldn't be too hard to track the individual keys however and have the forum software highlight when a key has changed ownership more than once a year. Especially if it returns to the original owner which is quite shifty behaviour. Banning said key (and all the other keys of the perpetrator) from sending PMs should be possible in that case.

I'm not saying such bans should be automatic, the highlighting would just make it easier for the admin to find the suspected keys as they dig into investigations of alleged harrassment.

I mean, I suppose the person could create a new account and buy new BioWare games to apply to that account just to keep on flaming, but that's really stretching it I think. Methinks if you did get burnt by the moderation like that, you would learn your lesson the hard way.

Modifié par KiddDaBeauty, 11 juin 2013 - 08:34 .

[Azul]

Not sure if you can help with this Jessica Merizan, but I asked this earlier in the thread and have not gotten a response.

How are we to get ME3 MP challenges unstuck if we can no longer follow the directions in this thread:  
Common Issues (Online Pass/Commendation Pack/Stuck Challenges) Updated March 19  ?

Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[KingRoxas]

CrustyBot wrote...

Should be a setting (receive PMs only from moderators/admins and friends) instead of being applied to everybody.

Yes, the forum equivalent of the dreaded toggle. But from a user perspective, it seems like a needless barrier to the whole 'social' aspect of the site.

[Tchos]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...
If the problem is spam from bots, how about restricting the PM function to those who have one or more registered BioWare game? The bots wouldn't have that, and I don't think it's all too heavy a restriction. After all, you'll likely only be active enough in the community to PM when you have a registered game.

Some of us are here for their older games, most of which can no longer be registered here.  They used to allow registration of their games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, and Knights of the Old Republic, before they switched to this version of the site.

I do have Dragon Age: Origins registered here (and if I felt the need to do so, I could also register my copy of Mass Effect), but many active and very helpful members I know here do not, because they own the older games, not the newer ones.

[OdanUrr]

Tchos wrote...

Some of us are here for their older games, most of which can no longer be registered here.  They used to allow registration of their games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, and Knights of the Old Republic, before they switched to this version of the site.

I do have Dragon Age: Origins registered here (and if I felt the need to do so, I could also register my copy of Mass Effect), but many active and very helpful members I know here do not, because they own the older games, not the newer ones.

You could suggest here that they implement a way for people to register their old titles as well.

Modifié par OdanUrr, 11 juin 2013 - 10:59 .