Gaia's ToS needs to be revised

[Katulain]

Just because a policy is in place doesn't mean it should remain in place. That's what I believe we're discussing here. Not the "how to follow protocol" part. But rather, "what changes should be made to bad protocols"?

There's no shortage of users coming out of the woodwork willing to give personal testimony that intimidation through mass bans over petty details should no longer hold any ground now that we have new administration.

Anyone, particularly in moderation, who wants to hold onto what's happened over the past three years... I encourage reflection.

[Alexius08]

Knight Yoshi

Bans can be appealed up to 1 year after the account has been banned. After that all appeals are disregarded. Account hacks can be filed up to 90 days after the account was hacked. They can be filed past that date, but there's no guarantee they'll look into it and less that items would be recovered.

There were warnings and bans issued after pictures of Jason Loia's "Dopamine, baby!" slideshow made its way to Gaia's forums in September 2013. I highly doubt that appeals by users who got banned over distributing pictures of those slideshows and the name of whomever made them were accepted. Months after that, the new ToS provisions that I mentioned were inserted and the spread of those pictures were essentially outlawed. Loia then went to a conference in April 2014 to say that he doesn't care about the inflation. If word about his lecture spread far and wide to Gaia's users in time with one the worst months of hyperinflation, many users would be pushed off the edge and would pressure him into resigning through quitting en masse.

Also, the PM spam that prompted many users to report the Admin account for spamming them happened in 2014. Gaia acknowledged the current announcements as spam only after Lanzer's return. And if those announcements are declared as such, the same thing can be argued for the PMs.

If the one-year limit on ban appeals would be enforced for these cases, wrongful bans that were made during that time would never be lifted. For other offenses, the one-year limit should still apply. For offenses incurred by speaking out against the previous management and breaking the rules they set in place, the policy should be waived.

[Katulain]

Alexius08

Knight Yoshi

Bans can be appealed up to 1 year after the account has been banned. After that all appeals are disregarded. Account hacks can be filed up to 90 days after the account was hacked. They can be filed past that date, but there's no guarantee they'll look into it and less that items would be recovered.

There were warnings and bans issued after pictures of the "Dopamine, baby!" slideshow made its way to Gaia's forums in September 2013. I highly doubt that appeals by users who got banned over distributing pictures of those slideshows and the name of whomever made them were accepted. Months after that, the new ToS provisions that I mentioned were inserted and the spread of those pictures were essentially outlawed. The maker of that slideshow then went to a conference in April 2014 to say that he doesn't care about the inflation. If word about his lecture spread far and wide to Gaia's users in time with one the worst months of hyperinflation, many users would be pushed off the edge and would pressure him into resigning through quitting en masse.

Also, the PM spam that prompted many users to report the Admin account for spamming them happened in 2014. Gaia acknowledged the current announcements as spam only after Lanzer's return. And if those announcements are declared as such, the same thing can be argued for the PMs.

If the one-year limit on ban appeals would be enforced for these cases, wrongful bans that were made during that time would never be lifted. For other offenses, the one-year limit should still apply. For offenses incurred by speaking out against the previous management and breaking the rules they set in place, the policy should be waived.

I am in 100% agreement with Alexius08 on this.

[Qwertea]

It really makes me mad that tons of people were banned after those edits to the ToS. We were never told about the edits until after people were hit with ban hammers. If you're going to change rules on a site you need to let the userbase know that you made said changes! emotion_donotwant

[StarvstheForcesofEvil]

Dogoda

It really makes me mad that tons of people were banned after those edits to the ToS. We were never told about the edits until after people were hit with ban hammers. If you're going to change rules on a site you need to let the userbase know that you made said changes! emotion_donotwant

This.
Were people supposed to have been on their toes or just shrug it off and go, "Oh, well Gaia's a private business and they can do whatever they want so I'll just get over myself." ?

[Alexius08]

Dogoda

It really makes me mad that tons of people were banned after those edits to the ToS. We were never told about the edits until after people were hit with ban hammers. If you're going to change rules on a site you need to let the userbase know that you made said changes! emotion_donotwant

The old version of the ToS specifically required them to inform us of changes to the rules. They went ahead and changed it without informing us and altered the part that requires them to inform us of changes so that they could relieve themselves of that responsibility whenever they choose.

And even before those edits were made, bans were issued as if those provisions were present.

[Katulain]

Dogoda

It really makes me mad that tons of people were banned after those edits to the ToS. We were never told about the edits until after people were hit with ban hammers. If you're going to change rules on a site you need to let the userbase know that you made said changes! emotion_donotwant

This.

[Alexius08]

Lanzer just responded in another thread about Section 4q.

lanzer

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence. 3nodding

Let's wait for what can be done about the others.

[Lanzer]

Re-post from another thread, but the message is the same:

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence.

And in regards to the terms of service, I will ask Zero to restore the older version. All I can say is that I'm sorry for such changes in the first place.

[Nyadriel]

lanzer

Re-post from another thread, but the message is the same:

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence.

And in regards to the terms of service, I will ask Zero to restore the older version. All I can say is that I'm sorry for such changes in the first place.

I don't think you should have to apologize for what they did. Just saying. But thank you.

Gosh! It feels so much calmer around here since you came back!

[shy gh0st]

Quote:

Termination. You agree that Gaia, in its sole discretion and for any or no reason, may terminate any account (or any part thereof) you may have with Gaia or your use of Gaia Online and remove and discard all or any part of your account

this has been in the TOS forever.
so while i understand wanting to change the rules about even mentioning staff member's names [public information etc etc]
i don't think they'll be going back to unban everyone from this.

because it's still their site and everyone using it agreed to this rule.

[Neshira Namea Returns]

lanzer

Re-post from another thread, but the message is the same:

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence.

And in regards to the terms of service, I will ask Zero to restore the older version. All I can say is that I'm sorry for such changes in the first place.

If I may ask, will people who have been warned recently for these actions have the marks scrubbed from their accounts? I was warned and a post removed from your welcome back thread because I wrote a silly christmas carol in which I referred to the old CEO as "Goldemort" I did not use his real name nor did I sling any insults other than that one line that said something along the lines of: "Lanzer's back, holy crap, Goldemort's no more" (to the tune of Jingle bells no less!) The entire carol was silly and hopeful so I was shocked when it was deleted and I received a warning for it.

[Chibi Halo]

StarvstheForcesofEvil

Dogoda

It really makes me mad that tons of people were banned after those edits to the ToS. We were never told about the edits until after people were hit with ban hammers. If you're going to change rules on a site you need to let the userbase know that you made said changes! emotion_donotwant

This.
Were people supposed to have been on their toes or just shrug it off and go, "Oh, well Gaia's a private business and they can do whatever they want so I'll just get over myself." ?

No you were not but the way people reacted wasn't how it was supposed to be handled by the users. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about expressing displeasure over something the staff did. The right way is to make a civil piece of feedback stating what happened and why you don't like that it happened without profanity, name dropping, telling people to stalk the staff off site, finding out private off Gaia information about the staff and making that public (such as the social media account of a spouse or child), hacking their private social media accounts, or making threats against them and their families. The wrong way is doing any of those things and generally disrupting things on Gaia over their decisions. It's okay to be mad if someone on staff screws up big time. It's not okay to make their lives a living hell because of it. That's what people were doing after that slideshow. They were stalking the guy off Gaia and looking for anything of his they could use against him. I think some even advocated going as far as identity theft in order to get their point across.

The point is, you are very welcome to be all "Yo Gaia I've heard your C Level staff has been saying some pretty nasty things about the users on this site and I would appreciate it if they treat their users with respect if they want us to spend money on this site" all you want. They don't mind that because it doesn't directly name someone who doesn't have a presence on the site. For an actual staff member with an actual on site presence you can be all "zero omega I don't like the way you handled that last issue with the mass pass locks. It took too long to resolve it and it's left a lot of people not trusting you guys" but nothing more than that level of feedback. There are plenty of ways to show you're mad at them without breaking the ToS and resorting to harassing staff members on and off Gaia. Nobody said you can't give feedback. They just don't want you to do it in a way that could get you in trouble with Gaia or even the law.

[Qwertea]

lanzer

Re-post from another thread, but the message is the same:

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence.

And in regards to the terms of service, I will ask Zero to restore the older version. All I can say is that I'm sorry for such changes in the first place.

This is awesome news, thank you for doing this! But what about the people that were unfairly banned due to these rules? They had no knowledge that the tos was changed, Gary and his staff never made anyone aware of changes until the mass banning started. We only found out because users that were banned came back on new accounts. Lots of these people were regs in SF and the GCD a few even wanted to be moderators. It's not fair to them at all, especially to those who were screwed out of a mod position. They can't apply now because they have a wrongful ban in their record.

[Infamous]

Dogoda

lanzer

Re-post from another thread, but the message is the same:

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence.

And in regards to the terms of service, I will ask Zero to restore the older version. All I can say is that I'm sorry for such changes in the first place.

This is awesome news, thank you for doing this! But what about the people that were unfairly banned due to these rules? They had no knowledge that the tos was changed, Gary and his staff never made anyone aware of changes until the mass banning started. We only found out because users that were banned came back on new accounts. Lots of these people were regs in SF and the GCD a few even wanted to be moderators. It's not fair to them at all, especially to those who were screwed out of a mod position. They can't apply now because they have a wrongful ban in their record.

While I wasn't a moderator on the team when this rule started, I do not know of any users that were banned for posting the previous CEO's real name. Those that have been recently banned were because of other information being posted (such as a social security number).

Typically, from what I've seen other mods do, is that the posts were deleted and the user was told that the request was made for his name not to be posted. It never resulted in a warning or a ban unless the situation became abusive or a threat was made.