This next story comes to us by way of Gomez_Adams. Now, what started out as a simple question to the Community Administrator by name of Ghostprime turned into what can best be described as a long, drawn out, misguided, moronic, borderline negligent lesson in ineptitude the likes of which we have never before seen.
To set this all up, we need to make a few simple clarifications:
- As a Community Administrator, you should be well aware of the rules that govern your community.
- As a Community Administrator, you should be unbiased in the application of those rules.
- As a Community Administrator, you should be prepared to answer questions clearly, concisely, and in a timely manner.
There’s no other way to word this: Ghostprime is a complete failure in every single one of those statements. It goes deeper than that, though. It’s not just him. It’s ALL of Wargaming’s staff. Every single last one of them.
So, with all of that said the question becomes: What was so hard for them to sort out? Well, here it is straight from Gomez_Adams original PM to Ghostprime sent on September 29th:
Not long ago, I was banned for a day for violating the rule of having a link in my sig. (I had one link in it. I had assumed it was OK since so many others had links in their sigs.)
I have noticed that when I go to make a change to my signature, it says this:
Edit Signature
Your signature may contain:
- Up to 1 images
- Images up to 468 x 100 pixels
- Up to 0 URLs
- Up to 5 lines
- Unlimited number of characters
Now, I’ve seen people using bigger images and multiple links and they all get away with it no problem. So why am I policed over it and they’re not?
For instance, this sig:
Tsavo; Computer Gaming Enthusiast, Casual Artist, Wiseguy
Someone made a fan page about me | My twitch stream | Youtube | WORLD OF TANKS WIKI
Tier X: T110E5, T110E3, T110E4, T57, M48, E100, Leopard 1, Obj 140, Centurion X, FV 215, Rare tonks: M60, T95E6, T23E3, BT-SV, TYPE 59
He’s running 4 links and nobody says a word.
What’s more, you have this rule in your Forums Rules listing:
Additionally, excessively long forum signatures are not permitted. Signatures may not exceed two lines. If these limitations are exceeded, then the disruptive elements will be removed without explanation and the offending account may receive sanctions. Users are allowed to use images in your signatures, but their size must not exceed 468px×100px (length x width). The signatures can contain animation, but it should not be annoying.
So which is it? Can we or can’t we have multiple lines (up to 5) and pretty much unlimited links?
Thanks in advance.
Seems a pretty straight forward question to us. It wouldn’t seem to us to be too difficult to clear that up at all if you’re a Community Administrator; or at the very least it certainly shouldn’t be.
But this is Wargaming, folks, and nothing, and we mean absolutely NOTHING, is ever easy here. That question would go on to be dodged not just by Ghostprime, but by no less than 3 other Wargaming employees over a period of weeks.
Now, one would think that the response from a Community Administrator would be a simple clarification of the rules and in all likelihood removing the contradictory rules on the site itself, right?
Wrong. Here’s Ghostprime’s response to that query:
What link were you moderated for and what was the date? This is the information I am missing.
What the flying hell is that? Not once did he say, “I’m appealing this” or “I’d like you to overturn this” or anything of that nature. All he ever asked for was a clarification of the rules. So what does he get? A complete and total dodge of the question. But, being the type of person he is (which is a hell of a lot more reserved than many of us are) Gomez replied back in typical fashion:
It was about 6 or 7 months ago, and I didn’t have a problem with it at the time or now since it did say zero links allowed in the Signature dialogue window. I had never really paid attention to it at the time and hadn’t noticed it.
I was just wanting to add a link after I saw so many people using them lately and didn’t know if the rules had changed since then and simply never been updated. Since the actual text on my window still says no links are allowed, I wanted to clarify it was OK before I did.
That and the size of images as well and how many lines we can use. There’s another guy using an image 600 x 220 or thereabouts and I was wondering if that was OK as well.
So now we have it out there: Just clarify the rules, please. But this is Wargaming, and it simply can’t be done. The response to that is this from Ghostprime:
As long as your link ist to cause unrest, or advertising, or selling. If you feel it’s questionable, you can run it by me first, and I’ll let you know.
So what about the rest of it? What about the image sizes? What about the number of lines? Absolutely nothing. It is once again completely ignored.
Now, Gomez_Adams, from what we know of him, is the type of person that is very methodical in what he does. Once he ask you something several times and you refuse to answer him, he’ll simply ask somebody else; and that is exactly what he did. He filed a ticket to try to get the answers he was looking for from the Wargaming NA Office. He sent an exact copy and paste of his original question to Ghostprime asking simply for them to clarify the rules once and for all since Ghostprime simply refused to.
He sent it in on September the 30th. He was ignored for 5 days. He post to his ticket two more times asking for a clarification. So after nearly a week, what does he get back? This:
Jonathan Bryant October 4, 2016 7:48 PM
Hey Gomez_Adams,
Thank you for contacting Wargaming America!
We apologize for the delayed response and appreciate you for bringing this to our attention. We will definitely look into this, however, any further inquiries about forum moderation should be directed to the forum moderators.
Again we thank you for contacting Wargaming Support, and hope you have a good day!
Best Regards,
Jonathan Bryant
Wargaming America Support
Well gee-whiz there, Jonathan! That’s just brilliant. So not only does the Community Administrator refuse to answer him, the home office refers him right back to the same person who refuses to answer him.
Well played, Wargaming!
Now, it’s at this point that most of us, to a man, would have simply blown our stack completely and went off on a bender. But not our man Gomez. He kept his cool, and filed another ticket. This ticket said the same thing with the addition of this:
Ticket #868207
Category: WoT
Sub-category: Penalty AppealsSo here we go again. I’ve been asking Ghostprime to clarify the rules on the NA forum and he refuses to answer the questions.
I then submit a ticket here because he refuses to clarify the rules and avoids the questions and wait for a week for an answer and you tell me to ask him again.
He then just sent a copy and paste of everything you’ve all read up to this point. Now then, what does he get as a response to this one? Well, you pretty much already know, but for the record, here it is:
Greetings, Gomez_Adams,
Thank you for contacting Wargaming Support.
Forums offenses need to be handled via the forum Report system where our dedicated moderation team can review all claims.
If you find content that you believe to be in violation of our Forum Rules, please make use of our forum report system.
The Forum Rules can be found at the following location: http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/forum-29/announcement-100-world-of-tanks-forum-rules/
You can report content by clicking on the “Report” button located in the lower-left hand corner of every piece of content in our forums.
Good luck on the field and the open seas, Soldier!
Best Regards,
Christopher Lorenzo
Wow.
Just.
Fucking.
Wow.
So you have contradictory rules posted on your site that are pointed out to you and your answer is to send him to the very same contradictory rules?
Folks, that is stupid on a level that is simply titanic. It’s beyond comprehension how anybody, let alone three anybodies, could be that blatantly stupid.
Or are they? Is it not equally possible that they simply hope by way of frustrating people into giving up that they can leave contradictory rules in place and pick and choose who they will enforce them against and when based on what they feel or think at the time?
It would certainly seem so, would it not? Well, our man in Istanbul simply refuses to give up. He sends in yet another ticket. It’s at this point of reading through all of this ourselves that we stopped referring to him as Gomez_Adams and started calling him Job. Surely, nobody short of him would ever have this kind of perseverance. So here’s what he sent on more time:
Ticket #869158
Category: WoT
- Sub-category: Penalty Appeals
Here we go for the THIRD TIME!
It is NOT HARD to ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS. After two weeks and 3 tickets you’ve given me ONE ANSWER.
PLEASE READ THE TICKET!!!
You still HAVE NOT ANSWERED IF LINKS ARE ALLOWED AND IF SO HOW MANY AND IF LARGE SIZE IMAGES IN SIGS ARE ALLOWED.
You know you’ve accomplished something when Job starts typing in all caps. Guess what, sports fans: It worked! Here, at long last, is the response:
Jacob Adler October 7, 2016 2:01 PM
Hey Gomez_Adams,
Thank you for contacting Wargaming Support! I apologize if your question has not been thoroughly answered, and appreciate your patience with this situation.
Please be aware that links are allowed in your signature as long as they do not link to something inappropriate.
As for how many links you can have, please be aware that excessively long forum signatures are not permitted. As long as it doesn’t exceed two lines, you should be fine.
Also, if these limitations are exceeded, then the disruptive elements will be removed without explanation and the offending account may receive sanctions.
If you’d like to put an image in your signature, you’re more than welcome to, but their size must not exceed 468px×100px (length x width). The signatures can contain animation, but it should not be annoying
If you believe someone is in violation of these rules, you’re more than welcome to report them using the “Report” feature on the forums so our moderators can take action (if necessary).
I hope that this has addressed all of your questions and concerns.
Thank you again for contacting Wargaming Support. If you have any further questions of concerns please check out our knowledge base.
Hope you have a great day!
Best Regards,
Jacob Adler
Well, thank you Jacob! (The thought that it’s Jacob that finally answers Job is not lost on us at all.) So, after all of that, armed with his answers that Ghostprime would never give him, our man PM’s the “Community Administrator” to let him know what his rules actually are. He posted the exact response from corporate that we posted here and points out people that are breaking those very rules that were pointed out to him that he did nothing at all about.
So what’s Ghostprime’s response to that? Well, it’s the typical two-faced response he always gives:
I would like to point out to you that I do not care who is from what clan. There is not a certain clan that I give more attention to or have any sort of pull over myself or the moderation team.
Or any person for that matter. The size of the sig is very minor.
So it’s minor when it’s a power clan -G- member doing it and he doesn’t care. OK. So then Gomez hits him with this:
So I can make a sig that size and it’s no problem?
And guess what the response is to that. Go on, guess. You got it – but here’s the exchange for you as it went down:
Ghostprime: I would prefer the size that is listed. I mean this for everyone.
Gomez_Adams: So in other words, he can and I can’t…just like I said before?
Ghostprime: Now you are putting words in my mouth. I never said that. What is or is not happening with another player is not your concern, and if I mention anything about what i may have said, or done to another player that will break our privacy rules. I wouldn’t tell others if I game you an RO, or asked you to do something, remove a link, or any such things. Even if they asked.
Thank you for pointing this out, I will make sure that this gets taken care of.
Gomez_Adams: Well, it is what it is. When I point out his blatant violation of the rules, the moderators do nothing about it and you say it’s no big deal. When I ask permission to do the same thing I’m told no.
So we’ll see what happens I guess. But since it’s always been a two rule system – one rule set for power clans like G that can have oversized sigs and insult people 7 post in a row and never once get an edit or ban for it and one set of rules for guys like me, who must obey the letter of the rules and still can’t do even that without getting a ban.
Those are the facts. It happens here every day. Several examples have been pointed out to you and yet not one single thing has changed.
I leave it at that for now.
________________________________________
And there you have it, folks. The blatant double talk, double standard tactics used by Wargaming. Weeks it took, folks. Weeks…and for what? A simple clarification of the very rules they wrote themselves.
And you know what the funny part of it all is? Those very same contradictory rules are still there. After all of that, after they’ve been pointed out, one rule still says you can only have 2 lines while the other says you can have 5. One rules says you can have no links at all, the other says it’s no problem.
If that, as well as this instance, doesn’t show the absolute, blatant, wanton and epic ineptitude of the entire Wargaming North America office, nothing does.
Actually, my signature is within the rules:
-5 lines of text
-no URLs (those are Hyperlinks in my sig)
http://i.imgur.com/WWvMQN6.png You’ll see the current rules in place in that pic
Nobody ever said that it was illegal at all. Nobody ever once suggested that. Once again, being the complete, utter, blithering idiot you are, you don’t read or look at anything. You instantly jump on the defensive because of the bullshit way you live your life.
Try actually reading the article again. Never once does Gomez even suggest your sig is illegal. He simply wonders why the sig rules state that no links are allowed, that he was sanctioned for having a single link in his, and yours has several links in it and nothing was ever done about it at all.
All he ask for was a clarification. Sadly, complete village idiots at Wargaming and fucktards like your dumb ass can’t read a simple ticket.
– Thing 1
So my previous comment showing you exactly how the signature is within the rules listed in settings gets removed? C’mon guys, at least be transparent.
Contrary to what those voices in that echo chamber you call a head are telling you, we’re not only not obsessed with your stupid ass, this is not a full time job for any of us. We do this whenever we get around to it.
However, your ongoing obsession with us is quite flattering as well as entertaining. We’ll just leave this here for you too:
– Thing 1
WHOA! The stupid fuck posted from his work!?!?!
Doubtful. Nobody’s that stupid. But then again…
At any rate, they are now aware. So if he does work there, that’s going to be interesting in a few weeks time I think.
– Thing 1
Cool, personal threats. Also, that’s the University’s gateway IP (all outside networks see that) so file away. Congrats on, you know, actually going after someone personally. Accusation of a felony, that’s mature.
So is spamming shit under multiple IP’s after you’ve been shown the door several times. It’s laughable how you try to play the victim when you’re the one spamming crap from every single computer you can get your hands on. You’re the textbook example of obsessed. It’s actually got to the point of full bore hilarity.
And we’re well aware that’s the university’s gateway. Now they know too, and with your description, a picture of your cubicle and a picture of you attached, they just MIGHT eventually find out which terminal it was made from.
Then again, they may not care.
Sleep tight.
– Thing 1