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Game Board Moderation Notices

Jody Robinson
By Jody Robinson, Community Manager

All GameSpot users will now receive a PM about being moderated for a game board violation.

If you are a frequent poster of the game boards, then you might not realize that these forums are moderated and powered by GameFAQs. Many years ago, GameSpot combined the game boards with GameFAQs game boards. If you are moderated for posting in the game boards, then the only way you might know is if you were suspended, which would give you an error that you had no access to the game boards (which also took your karma away on the site). With the new change, you will now receive a notice via private message about the broken violation made while using a game board. In the near future, you will notice a reason based on the Terms of Use violation instead of the current reason, which is quite vague "GameFAQs reason."

GameSpot and GameFAQs have the same Terms of Use agreement, but not all of the rules are handled in the same manner. GameFAQs uses a karma system (GF) and GameSpot measures based on moderator/admin investigations on the user's tenure, activity (post count), and how he or she contributes to the site (GS). Check out GameFAQs annotated Terms of Use to make sure you are familiar with the site if you frequently use the game boards. Another helpful page is GameFAQs frequently asked questions page.

Now that you understand how the game boards function, I might as well share some tips about ways you can avoid being moderated for reasons you had not imagined. The game boards should be used in a manner of “text” only. If you use the WYSIWYG editor, .html, or even spoiler tags, then none of that can be viewed on the GameFAQs end at this time. Many users do not realize that sharing a spoiler tag might display properly while using the GameSpot game board pages, but that entire spoiler and the tag will display entirely for a GameFAQs user. On a related note, an imbedded image will also not display to a GameFAQs user.

You might think, “Well, at least another GameSpot user can see my content or image,” but the problem that I notice the most is that a GameFAQs user will flag the content for being disruptive or sharing a spoiler. The GameFAQs moderator or admin will see the violation on his or her end and the reported abuse will be considered valid.

You can avoid receiving these kinds of moderations by using text only (paste your content into a notepad and that’s how it will look to a GameFAQs user), or you can go to the game board to view the post.

To get to GameFAQs version of the game board, go to the front page of the GameSpot game board and scroll to the bottom of the page. For an example, go to the Halo Reach forum. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “GameFAQs” hyperlink located on the bottom, which will lead you to the Halo Reach forum on GameFAQs.

We have some more related announcements regarding moderation policies, which will be shared in the coming weeks.

Jody Robinson
By Jody Robinson, Community Manager

Jody Robinson's vocabulary consists mainly of first person shooters because of her Quake roots. She's also rather fond of RTS and MMO games.

19 comments
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Meloetta
Meloetta

Wow, so much (in my opinion) unwarranted GF hate. Anyways, I'm glad things like these are happening though, any progress towards complete mod system compatibility is good. Now we just need to allow users here to dispute. >_>

topsemag55
topsemag55 ranger

I only use Gamefaqs whenever I need to read a walkthrough. Other than that, I stay away from their forums.

Ohaidere
Ohaidere

"vague GameFAQs reason." That about sums up the Gfaqs moderation policies

Malhound
Malhound

Ive had a lot of time on GameFAQs searching for PSX game covers and screenshots.

LordAndrew
LordAndrew

I've done all my GameFAQs posting from GameFAQs for some time. I find that the integration between the two is less than ideal.

Misfit119
Misfit119

People are kind of missing the point of gamefaqs. It's supposed to be super easy on the system resources, unlike almost every other gaming website out there. Using my mobile device to visit any other website takes up a lot of data and loads slowly but I can still use gamefaqs. However the boards should be seperate and should have been for awhile now. It's just too much trouble the way it is and explaining things just makes it more frustrating because obviously people know of the problems but aren't fixing them.

Palantas
Palantas

Thank ****ing lord. I have maybe a dozen moderations from GameSpot, spread over years. I have about 50 from GameFAQs. I'd keep getting them, but with no notification that I was being moderated, I didn't know I'd done anything wrong.

Born_Lucky
Born_Lucky

I have an even better suggestion - don't moderate users for writing the same things that appear in articles on the site. Ive actually seen someone get suspended for quoting a Gamespot article. This place is out of control.

NColdhardt
NColdhardt

I used to be a GameFaqs user. Yeah, USED to be...

grasshopper6
grasshopper6

they over do it with the regulations sometimes

PizzaWizard13
PizzaWizard13

i dont know why two sites use the same boards. and then have two different versions on top of that. just make them all go to one of the other. (preferably gs)

homsarrunner3
homsarrunner3

@McStrongfast: I concur. This type of stuff has been around far too long without anyone fixing it, and it needs to happen now. Someone should do something. Someone that's not me.

McStrongfast
McStrongfast

People getting banned for posting spoiler tagged spoilers is just... These types of problems really shouldn't exist. When the boards were merged you should've made sure there was consistency between them.

monkeyd_93
monkeyd_93

its a better system i must admit, i recieved a warning i think from posting before, but was completely unaware i had recieved it until i went to moderation history

buft
buft

its a rubbish system that cause untold problems for gamespot users time and time again, the gamefaqs boards need to get with the times, no one is 56king these boards anymore. the other problem is the gamefaq elitism that goes on within the boards

TristanH12
TristanH12

Why cant they just use a similar system. It seems the Gamefaqs boards are just a a downgrade?

Darthkaiser
Darthkaiser moderator moderator

This explains a lot, I always wondered why my posts showed up at gf boards, looks like they are merged lol

Blaketoberfest
Blaketoberfest

Well, there are a lot of spammers on the GameFAQs boards to begin with...

thom_maytees
thom_maytees

It is about time that this has happened. At least people who were moderated from GameFAQs will no longer have to go to the Ask the Mods forum to ask why there were moderated.

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