Before I get into my feedback, I just want to say that I really do appreciate this website and the volunteering that has gone into managing it, from moderation efforts to events and planning activities for us. There’s not many spaces on the internet where I can say I’ve been ‘active’ for 12 years and made lifelong friendships. My post is from a place of genuine care and gratitude for this community, I want things to be better for everyone.
This is the same reason why we’re all here in this feedback thread.
Posts here are not dogpiling for the sake of it, or an attempt to stir the pot - we are concerned. We have been for a while, actually, and this has been the first time ever in a forum’s 20 year history where open feedback has been tolerated. This contributes to the influx of discussion - we are concerned about practices and behaviours that have gone on for many years and would like to see them addressed and changed. We felt this way about topics 5 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago. This thread should not have been the fuel for action towards these things. A lot of what we’re talking about isn’t new, and as mentioned, has been brought up previously - repeatedly. Why hasn’t action or acknowledgement been taken sooner, why has it taken until 2025? I’d like to highlight Mick’s words from a few pages ago here:
The creation of this thread gave me hope, especially with the first post detailing “We will read and consider every piece of feedback posted here”. Commitments like this are very reassuring for a community, however actions need to be met with these statements to show credibility and trust. Over the time of this thread, certain statements by staff have felt more like a formality or way to manage criticism rather than a genuine commitment to change. Currently, that’s why many of us are sceptical, frustrated and disappointed right now. We haven’t came to this conclusion because we felt like it, it’s through repeated avoidance within this thread.
Trust can only be rebuilt through consistent, transparent action, not just words.
Of course nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, but it’s about how we acknowledge and change them. Choosing to still not fully address a lot of topics, at the time I’m writing this, is disappointing. I was hoping I wouldn’t need to make this post, especially as so many members have already highlighted issues, however, here we are! I’m choosing to contribute because I believe that realistic, positive changes can be made by staff.
Thank you for addressing a few things already, within the last half of the 2nd post here and ‘thread highlights’. These are really appreciated. For these types (and quantities) of ‘official’ updates, sifting through thread highlights can be a little difficult - I’d like to suggest possibly compiling topics that have been already covered into one place - possibly updating the 2nd post? Or an ‘updates’ thread outside of this, where only staff post? Not sure what’s best or appropriate, just a suggestion to keep new information accessible.
I’d also like to thank the staff that have been genuine, actively communicated with us and acknowledged mistakes. This is a big purpose of the thread and this approach is appreciated to the community, the ability to say ‘sorry’ and take accountability goes such a long way. Thank you for hearing us.
Double Standards
First of all, I’m very sorry to hear you’re experiencing those struggles Chris - I hope that you’re able to access the help and support that you need. Thank you for communicating with us, it’s better late than never.
I will note, it doesn’t sit right with me that you were able to make over 176 public posts on this forum (I got tired of counting), a lot of which detail ‘What’s Bothering You’ entries, before addressing 1 apology. To the community, this shows you would prioritise posting about your own life before taking responsibility as staff. I hope you can understand how selfish this looks, even if you didn’t feel ready - a lot of us don’t feel ready to tackle uncomfortable situations, emotionally available or not, the other person doesn’t deserve to hurt for that long because of something you’ve done - no matter the excuse. In the future, I hope scenarios like this don’t happen again. Good luck with your personal journey and own reflections. (This section below is not necessarily directly talking one-to-one with you Chris, but to everyone in general):
If a forum member was in the same situation (as staff or not) - would they also be graced with essentially, no consequences for their actions? Do we just have to give enough detail about our personal lives to excuse behaviours? Can I post something wildly inappropriate tomorrow and avoid warnings, bans, and apologies because I’m dealing with xyz like severe depression, undiagnosed ADHD & autism, financial difficulties and substance abuse - which you just have to take my word for? It’s not an excuse or safety blanket, it’s unfair for everyone to handle problematic behaviour like this.
The reality is, every single member on this forum is dealing with something similar to what Chris listed, whether it’s their mental health, discrimination, harassment, trauma, family dynamics, neurodivergence, anything listed in the WBY thread. We shouldn’t have to go into this detail when facing or looking to avoid consequences and accountability.
Context to actions can help an understanding of why it happened - but that shouldn’t play a factor into repercussions and avoidance. You can still grow and learn as a human whilst facing consequences for something you have done.
General Bad Practice
At this moment in time, as a member I feel upset and uncomfortable with certain people continuing to act as staff, knowing inappropriate, predatory comments that have been made (
x,
x,
x), how they have publicly singled out members, shown personal bias and handled situations poorly (
x), and the way posts are shadow edited as a priority to protect staff's problematic behaviour over the community to avoid accountability, in a feedback thread (
x).
It could be a case of ‘we won’t do this again, sorry’, (only after we have highlighted things) - but I’ll always remember the predatory ‘van joke’ a few years ago in 2020 (
x). At the time, this was defended by staff and feedback did not feel heard. So over the last 5 years, it could be argued that predatory actions are not only made by staff, but not taken seriously, as this has happened multiple times now? I seriously hope these will not continue, but we shouldn’t even be having this conversation to begin with, as it just shouldn’t happen - especially on an animal crossing website, or take the community in 2025 to feel heard and receive accountability.
On multiple occasions, I have seen a particular staff member handle situations poorly/ inappropriately by responding to a member in an unprofessional manner - I believe it was intentional. They have then swiftly deleted all evidence, including their own responses. Knowing they can do this, and purposely seeing this opportunity to be rude and sassy to members (regardless of context), is not okay. It’s an abuse of moderation powers.
This links to shadow editing - luckily, I saw Shark's original post, why was the original information taken out? The speed at which this was done, without an explanation, was to benefit and protect staff, rather than benefitting the community. We need to be able to openly talk about these things.
Imagine if she didn't call out the shadow edit, imagine if she didn't stand up for herself. If she never brought this up or the screenshot, other members would not have shared the other problematic posts. A CTS route (or shadow editing out this information in a feedback thread) would have swept it under the rug, and Chris would likely have not responded at all due to protection from other staff.
I can only ask that staff don’t continue to do this, and as a community - please stand up for yourself if you have experienced this and believe it was unfair.
Ban Procedures, Staff Bias & Ignore Feature
A lot of the above sections relates to this, and I already agree with a lot of what members have wrote on recent bans, so I’ll try my best to not repeat concerns. As an example of ban hypocrisy, would Chris’s situation of multiple inappropriate comments not warrant a ban? At what point is an investigation appropriate into a member’s posting history? Do you have the time to look at every member’s posting history? When and why does this act become a priority? If historic posts contribute a ban extension - why is this not applied to everyone - does an apology just make everything okay? Is this act of review not just fishing for a reason to extend a ban? How long back do you go into a user’s history - a year, 5 years, 1 month?
I do not understand how it’s fair for staff to be rude but when a member is ‘rude’ - they face consequences. The rules seem to flex unfairly and hypocritically.
Please could we have a refresher or update on the ban procedure as there’s a lot of confusion. I do believe staff have and can have an unfair bias to members, and they should not be a point of contact for handling situations with said member. We’re only human, and not everyone gets along, totally understandable. Situations could be handled more fairly when a different staff member is the communicator from a neutral position. Members have the right to ask for this to avoid feeling uncomfortable.
As mentioned, not everyone gets along and that’s completely normal. If a user makes multiple reports against someone instead of using the ignore feature, doesn’t that create a bias for staff? As they’re now actively listening for things that may not be there? This might be a good opportunity to do a refresher on how the ignore feature works overall. As previously mentioned by another user, it’s unfortunate that an ignored member, if promoted to staff, then becomes unignored. I understand that important updates may come from staff - but in these scenarios, if the update is in boards like ‘The Bulletin Board’, the member that chose the ignore feature can simply choose to ‘view post’ to see the update. For events, the member could also choose to not participate if hosted by someone they’ve selected as ‘ignore’. I don’t really know, as the ignore feature is a bit flawed in itself, as ignored members can still follow you. A more comprehensive block feature would be appreciated.
Hateful & Controversial Content
Thank you for the update on this LD. It’s one of the things I was alluding to in my previous post.
From this - I hope that it’s not just you alone continuing to work on this response. I don’t know or need to understand how these responses are being created, but for one staff member alone doesn’t seem fair or the most supportive, not to mention the knock-on effect of time lag for the community. This is just an observation and hopefully just an assumption! (The below isn’t one-to-one directed at you Destani, even when I reference your post again, but a wider sense of discussion):
I already touched on this in the ‘double standards’ section, but all reports and content should be treated the same. Having a level of flexibility to certain members and giving them the benefit of the doubt, and others not, is not fair. As staff, you’ll never know the full picture of a member to make these flexible decisions, unfortunately it just comes across as hypocritical, even though you’re trying to do what’s best. I’ll quote Crash who has already worded this really well:
I’ve seen the repeated cycle of hurtful comments being made (A), a lack of staff action (from our perspective), resulting in the community (B) attempting to educate the user being hurtful explaining why it’s damaging to say xyz, some back and forth until staff step in when the situation has escalated - which could have been entirely avoided if the hurtful comments were shut down sooner. Unfortunately, the user making hurtful comments A, often is excused for ‘sharing opinions’ or to reasons detailed in LD’s post of certain members(A) receiving ‘special treatment’, and the hammer comes down on B - for coming across as frustrated to A. This misses the point entirely and is not fair to the community.
This seems to correlate to the topic, whether it’s religion, politics, society - of course we are going to have different opinions! Human communication is to discuss different view points, share views and interact. However, these topics seem to act as an umbrella for when lines are crossed. When the topic is more light-hearted, moderation seems to be pretty quick. This is just an observation of mine and I think it’s a bit unfair (as others have touched on in regards to certain bans/ staff priorities).
In regards to what might help:
I would argue this is the issue, as having more staff members (that are active) would fill those gaps of time zones, lag time and making things easier for you guys whilst benefiting the community. It sounds like you need more active staff? Is this not a solution for the workload? If things are getting ‘missed’ and falling now when the website has been more inactive, how can you be prepared and change things for if a new AC game dropped tomorrow? Or an influx of activity? Of course everyone can do better, but it’s what can realistically change and help the situation. Things need to be as easy as possible for you guys.
AI Use Within Posts, Text & Writing
Unfortunately, even within the last few pages of this thread, I’ve noticed people using AI instead of their own words to share their thoughts. As a user, as soon as I spot this, I’ll keep scrolling.
Please use your own brain in a feedback thread to be authentic and genuine, not chatgbt. I don’t know if this is something staff will consider with the AI images discussion - but as a user it’s incredibly off putting. Not everyone will have the same opinion, this is just my observation and thought it would be important to note. Personally, I want to read and talk to real people, not a deceptive inauthentic robotic waffling spiel that talks-like-this and uses really—long dash marks instead of - across the text.
This is not meant to be rude to anyone in particular, if you take offence then I do apologise. My frustrations are at the wider rising AI issue and not any members personally. I hope you find confidence in your writing, you coped without chatgbt for years - your own personal words and unique phrasing always sounds best! Much better than a robot that damages the environment.
Misc
There’s a lot more I could say but it doesn’t feel relevant right now - the focus needs to be on the above. I know there was an official WBY response, but I get genuinely worried around some of the things people post still. Not my place to tackle this, but it contributes to why I personally don’t really look at that thread, not because I don’t care but because I emotionally can’t handle it! I hope you’re all okay!! Another thing I’ve been thinking about - surely a lot of what members have said here isn’t the first time these topics have come up privately among staff? I’d imagine you also have internal discussions and feedback about how things are going. I really hope that if any of the points raised by members have also been raised internally by staff before, they weren’t dismissed. This is just a thought, not an assumption. I would hope you hope each other accountable. I’ve definitely probably missed some things out of this post.. if anyone would like to contact me privately to discuss things, please don’t hesitate. Talking things out can really help clarify thoughts, I’m always happy to listen.
Disclaimers:
- When mentioning or addressing staff or the use of ‘you’, this is a broader sense to avoid singling out people where possible.
- Bold sections are for skim readers - not necessarily to emphasise the point or wording in that paragraph.
- You can see the correlation between my join date and post count - I’ve never formally ‘gone on hiatus’ but I do take big breaks in activity. (x) I feel as if I’m consistently around, just not necessarily posting, meaning my knowledge could be far more in-depth here. There’s parts of my post that I wish I could elaborate on further - I’m really only scratching the surface on some topics unfortunately.
- I began writing my thoughts before more recent events, I’ve tried to generalise my post overall and edit/ update/ take things out so it’s more updated, just as some context as it does read a little strange. It’s taken me some time to write this as I’m worried it won’t be taken seriously and could be dismissed as defending friends, shadow edited, or misinterpreted based on how other feedback has been received here.
- As mentioned in my post a few pages ago and here - the timing of my overall feedback has been delayed for multiple reasons. I don’t want this post to feel like I’m taking away from current discussions and directions of this thread. I’ve tried to cover everything in one place to save spamming the thread. Ultimately, there’s no best time to post this.
