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Twitch vs Speedrun Community Drama (update: Twitch officially responds)

Mr Jared

Member
Is there any chance this event will make this change happen? It seems pretty important due to the old name being so easily misunderstood. When people hear admin they think top brass of a website. Which I have a feeling lead to the whole reddit thing.

There are a lot of things being discussed at the moment. This was more or less a perfect storm of horrible decisions meets legacy issues. I feel that now both our higher ups and engineers realize what an issue moderation has become, whether its an awkwardly named team, or lack of necessary tools to do their job both safely and effectively.

It's been a wake-up call in general, that this thing is far bigger than any of us, yet we all need to be responsible in maintaining it.

So, to answer your question.. most likely ;)
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
I also agree with you, but do you know how hard it is to lose an employee who has been with you for probably the longest time? I'm sure he will be behind the scenes for a while and if the CEO is not man enough to let him go, he'll be back and the cycle will repeat.

True, but they're also trying to focus on building back up the speedrunner communities relationship. While people do forget stuff over time, Horror coming back would ignite another fuse and I'm sure they're well aware of that. It's a bad spot to be in, so I'm not sure how they're going to handle the rest of this going forward.
 

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
There are a lot of things being discussed at the moment. This was more or less a perfect storm of horrible decisions meets legacy issues. I feel that now both our higher ups and engineers realize what an issue moderation has become, whether its an awkwardly named team, or lack of necessary tools to do their job both safely and effectively.

It's been a wake-up call in general, that this thing is far bigger than any of us, yet we all need to be responsible in maintaining it.

So, to answer your question.. most likely ;)

Sounds good :p Thanks for the insight.
 

DataGhost

Member
True, but they're also trying to focus on building back up the speedrunner communities relationship. While people do forget stuff over time, Horror coming back would ignite another fuse and I'm sure they're well aware of that. It's a bad spot to be in, so I'm not sure how they're going to handle the rest of this going forward.

The thing is the CEO is smart.

He posted a reply only on reddit. Non of twitch's official channels.

He knows that he can probably wait a few days for the internet to subside and then wait for the perfect time to give Horror a new name and a new account which probably has the power to do the same thing, over.

There are a lot of things being discussed at the moment. This was more or less a perfect storm of horrible decisions meets legacy issues. I feel that now both our higher ups and engineers realize what an issue moderation has become, whether its an awkwardly named team, or lack of necessary tools to do their job both safely and effectively.

It's been a wake-up call in general, that this thing is far bigger than any of us, yet we all need to be responsible in maintaining it.

So, to answer your question.. most likely ;)

I wish it was a wake up call for them. The problem is that Horror is still with them and the problem was not just Nightlight, it was about his abuse of power.
 

Faddy

Banned
The thing is the CEO is smart.

He posted a reply only on reddit. Non of twitch's official channels.

He knows that he can probably wait a few days for the internet to subside and then wait for the perfect time to give Horror a new name and a new account which probably has the power to do the same thing, over.

Honestly most of the discussion has happened on Twitter, Reddit, Twitch and here. It is not press release worthy. Everyone who has been affected by this will see it. It will be linked on twitter and SRLs IRC.
 

Mr Jared

Member
The problem is that Horror is still with them and the problem was not just Nightlight, it was about his abuse of power.

I can't comment on what his position is with the company, but I can tell you that Horror is no longer involved in the moderation process.
 

DataGhost

Member
I can't comment on what his position is with the company, but I can tell you that Horror is no longer involved in the moderation process.

No longer involved in the moderation process, temporarily.

"Horror has voluntarily stepped back from public facing moderation work at Twitch, as right now pretty much every moderation issue will be tainted by this episode."

That means he can come back and he has yet to step down from his moderating. It's all a matter of being behind the scenes for hm
 

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
I can't comment on what his position is with the company, but I can tell you that Horror is no longer involved in the moderation process.

Wasn't this implied in the message, I thought it said any moderation by him would be labeled bias from this point on.

Horror has voluntarily stepped back from public facing moderation work at Twitch, as right now pretty much every moderation issue will be tainted by this episode.

Pretty sure that's what it ment, I guess people misunderstood the first part.

Edit: as seen from above.
 

MarkMan

loves Arcade Sticks
I know this is not recent but... I love that Twitch is adding accountability (for everyone, not just their mods) in what they say/do on the site. This is important.
 

Freki

Member
I actually don't mind that horror didn't get crucify. I rather let him work and ruin twitch from behind the scene Kappa.

In Europe twitch is already shit - the only way to get a smooth framerate is to route my traffic over the US in order to use the US datacenters - pretty hilarious if you think about it.
 

Faddy

Banned
I wish it was a wake up call for them. The problem is that Horror is still with them and the problem was not just Nightlight, it was about his abuse of power.

Let's assume they want to get thing sorted and put better management and policy in place, it isn't good to begin that process by firing people. Horror is an employee and no doubt has friends at the company. Nothing hardens workers against change than an approach by dictat. In the mean time they say Horror is stepping back from a public role. We should give Twitch the benefit of the doubt, they have been responsive to their users as they have grown and they have started to process to make this right.
 
So they didn't just flat-out kick Horror to the curb? Weird decision. It'd be best for them if they took a firm stance and made a clean break.
 
In Europe twitch is already shit - the only way to get a smooth framerate is to route my traffic over the US in order to use the US datacenters - pretty hilarious if you think about it.

Money talk. I would imagine that they would buff up the data center in EU pretty soon, in light of the next gen console.
 

MetaWaddleDoo

Neo Member
That "In our defense" bit leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and kind of comes off as unprofessional. Like, they're owning up to their mistakes, but not really. Either way, seeing a public response like this is a good thing.
 

Akai__

Member
However, I believe it's not over. Horror is still with twitch as well as this guy:

http://i.imgur.com/TT4Lsgm.png

Horror has stepped back from public moderating but he can abuse his power in a few days or so with probably a new admin name. The CEO responded only to reddit, not the general public which only goes to show that he is only trying to please those that want to hear official statements.



I also agree with you, but do you know how hard it is to lose an employee who has been with you for probably the longest time? I'm sure he will be behind the scenes for a while and if the CEO is not man enough to let him go, he'll be back and the cycle will repeat.

I don't see any problem with Horror still working for Twitch. He has made some mistakes, but everyone makes mistakes and I'm sure he will learn from it. I saw him today in TheGreatGQ's channel, who is also a Twitch TV admin (and an awesome caster) and as soon as people started to talk about the situation, he left the channel.

And the other staff member did nothing wrong. He was telling the streamer to change the title, because it was inapropriate. People already started a campaign against Horror and the staff member didn't want people to overreact even more or follow a campaign, who was attacking/harrassing an Twitch TV admin. It's clearly against the TOS, so I see no problem with that.

Last but not least: The CEO replied officially to everyone. He posted this on reddit, because most people were discussing this already on reddit. Both Twitter accounts (Twitch TV and TwitchTV Support) retweeted it, too, so if this isn't an official statement, what is it then? The general public is informed and people who care about this will find out soon enough, what's going on.

Edit: Why would they change his name? If people find out that it's him under an other name, they will be pissed even more. The reality is, that people will forget about this very soon. Even sooner if Horror makes an official statement and maybe apologizes to the public or to those affected.
 

Faddy

Banned
So they didn't just flat-out kick Horror to the curb? Weird decision. It'd be best for them if they took a firm stance and made a clean break.

The problem was Twitch didn't have the correct policies in place, not that Horror went against their policies. Reason for dismissal: Caused eDrama isn't going to fly. That is a law suit waiting to happen and given all the details would probably gather some mainstream attention.
 

kuppy

Member
Good response, although I think they should have published it on their blog and then link it to reddit.

However I think there is a very good chance that this might bring a good change to the handling of the twitch staff and if they would get more serious regarding their responsibility it could seem that was the lesser evil.
 

traveler

Not Wario
That was about as good a response as they could have at this point. I think the way the harassment and Horror's response is summarized implies that Horror started banning after substantial harassment instead of the real situation which is that he went totally overboard by giving an ip ban in response to a legit criticism staged as an inappropriate joke, after which the actual mass harassment began, but that's a small point of contention. I also agree that this was about more than this one particular issue and that Horror's history as a whole should be taken into account, but all that said, the response is pretty much the right way to handle it and I don't expect them to just leave their own admin out to dry. Good on them, but the real test will be if Twitch continues to have such terrible behavior during future incidents or if they've learned this is a change for good.
 

co1onel

Member
And the other staff member did nothing wrong. He was telling the streamer to change the title, because it was inapropriate. People already started a campaign against Horror and the staff member didn't want people to overreact even more or follow a campaign, who was attacking/harrassing an Twitch TV admin. It's clearly against the TOS, so I see no problem with that.

The people with the "remove horror" titles didn't see it as harassment. They were stating their criticism against an admin that they felt made unjustified decisions. This in itself wasn't against the TOS. I guess its because the whole furry thing somehow got thrown into it, when that's really not what it was about.
 

Akai__

Member
How does one become a Twitch Global Moderator?

Twitch has sometimes open positions for it, where you have to apply. You need a very good reputation (from channel owners and/or other admins) and a normal chat history.

The people with the "remove horror" titles didn't see it as harassment. They were stating their criticism against a mod that they felt made unjustified decisions. This in itself wasn't against the TOS. I guess its because the whole furry thing somehow got thrown into it, when that's really not what it was about.

Sure, it wasn't, but the whole situation was already out of control. That streamer knew what he was up to. He took the risk, even if he was warned by that staff member. He could've discussed it with the staff member, but instead he took the opportunity to draw more people into this, only to make it worse. He wanted attention, nothing more. Also, the people who were behind this whole thing may not have been harrassing Horror, but this escalated very quick. Trolls took advantage of te situation and were attacking Horror with very hard lines. The staff member obviously wanted to prevent this.
 

DataGhost

Member
This is kind of an odd angle to take. Yes, they could just reinstate the guy under a new name, but after this episode, why on earth would they? Unless their internal decision-making process is based on spite, which seems unlikely, there's no reason fro them to do that. This is an excellent opportunity for them to move forward with new moderation and new policies and get out from under some of the legacy stuff from when they were small that appears to have been hampering them.

It is weird take, but twitch has been unresponsive to many of the abuses that have been done to users. This took them two days to reinstate the partners and all the people who use twitch for their living. I wonder what was going through their minds during this whole debacle and waiting for an official statement from twitch. This hasn't just been going on recently but for a long time. I'm sure I saw the Nightlight icon since a few months back.

And the other staff member did nothing wrong. He was telling the streamer to change the title, because it was inapropriate. People already started a campaign against Horror and the staff member didn't want people to overreact even more or follow a campaign, who was attacking/harrassing an Twitch TV admin. It's clearly against the TOS, so I see no problem with that.

Does "REMOVE HORROR" or "remove horrible zombie" violate TOS? Can you explain that to me? All I saw was a suppression of opinions and free speech which I thought Twitch would tolerate as long as it followed TOS. There will always be dissenters, but does that violate the TOS?
 

co1onel

Member
Sure, it wasn't, but the whole situation was already out of control. That streamer knew what he was up to. He took the risk, even if he was warned by that staff member. He could've discussed it with the staff member, but instead he took the opportunity to draw more people into this, only to make it worse. He wanted attention, nothing more. Also, the people who were behind this whole thing may not have been harrassing Horror, but this escalated very quick. Trolls took advantage of te situation and were attacking Horror with very hard lines. The staff member obviously wanted to prevent this.

I don't think it had anything to do with attention (apart from the regular stream monsters spamming). Streamers were genuinely angry at Horror. Also the staff members were unwilling to talk it out with people. They were banning streamers after they had stopped streaming and went to bed.
 

DataGhost

Member
Sure, it wasn't, but the whole situation was already out of control. That streamer knew what he was up to. He took the risk, even if he was warned by that staff member. He could've discussed it with the staff member, but instead he took the opportunity to draw more people into this, only to make it worse. He wanted attention, nothing more. Also, the people who were behind this whole thing may not have been harrassing Horror, but this escalated very quick. Trolls took advantage of te situation and were attacking Horror with very hard lines. The staff member obviously wanted to prevent this.

What? They had a right to ban the people that were trolling or even shut down chat but to shut down the Twitch partners, might I add, due to a small dissent of opinion within the speedrun community that has been happening for the last few days is alright with you?
 

Steaks

Member
I completely agree. There's been a long overdue name change coming to that group. The current front runner is just "Global Moderators."

Volunteer Moderator would be more clear.

You should also hire someone with some sort of professional moderation experience to lead your team.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
He knows that he can probably wait a few days for the internet to subside and then wait for the perfect time to give Horror a new name and a new account which probably has the power to do the same thing, over.
Isn't Horror a lawyer though? I doubt he really needs to be involved in moderation in the first place.
 

DataGhost

Member
Volunteer Moderator would be more clear.

You should also hire someone with some sort of professional moderation experience to lead your team.

The thing is that twitch isn't willing to pay for professional people that's why they picked people that they know.

Even with professional mods, we have staff members causing all sorts of problems:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDr...rama_overflows_twitch_admins_requests/cdjkgow

Read the reply to that one.

This is Jason:

http://i.imgur.com/G1RMsbo.png
 
Can we get JARED ol buddy to explain how "REMOVE HORROR" is harrasment or against the TOS?

I want to be specified so i don't get permabanned from twitch by saying something like "I DONT LIKE THIS COLOR GREEN TEXT" in front of a mod who tells me to stop complaining about the bright colors in the chat
 

DataGhost

Member
I can't comment on what his position is with the company, but I can tell you that Horror is no longer involved in the moderation process.

Not true.

"Horror has voluntarily stepped back from public facing moderation work at Twitch, as right now pretty much every moderation issue will be tainted by this episode."

Notice how they use the word public. They're being careful with their wording so that they do not lie. It leads me to believe he'll be behind the scenes doing the same things again
 
DataGhost. I think you have a lot of valid points and legit concerns, but I think you should at least give them some opportunity and time to see if they are going to keep their word.
 

rrs

Member
The official response is nice in some factors, but still reeks of non-answers. Horror is just going to lay low for now, Twitch will hopefully actually respond to admin abuse, and there are still channels that haven't been unbanned due to the incident. In fact the only partner that was caught up in the bans were super quickly unbanned (like a few hours?) because gotta have that money. Twitch needs to get some actual professional staff to handle things, as this could had been way less of a diaster with a proper amount of PR.

What's a fursona?

To quote Jedi Otter:

Fursona is literally your cartoon character that you make, sorta like an avatar.
Otherkin is on the more extreme side of that spectrum.
 

DataGhost

Member
The official response is nice in some factors, but still reeks of non-answers. Horror is just going to lay low for now, Twitch will hopefully actually respond to admin abuse, and there are still channels that haven't been unbanned due to the incident. In fact the only partner that was caught up in the bans were super quickly unbanned (like a few hours?) because gotta have that money. Twitch needs to get some actual professional staff to handle things, as this could had been way less of a diaster with a proper amount of PR.



To quote Jedi Otter:

Glad that the CEO is actually responding:

http://www.reddit.com/user/optimizeprime?count=26&before=t1_cdk33fo

However, actions will speak louder than words. I'll give it a few days to see what twitch has in mind
 

Akai__

Member
Does "REMOVE HORROR" or "remove horrible zombie" violate TOS? Can you explain that to me? All I saw was a suppression of opinions and free speech which I thought Twitch would tolerate as long as it followed TOS. There will always be dissenters, but does that violate the TOS?

What? They had a right to ban the people that were trolling or even shut down chat but to shut down the Twitch partners, might I add, due to a small dissent of opinion within the speedrun community that has been happening for the last few days is alright with you?

They, as a mass, seeked Horror's removal from Twitch. The admins/staff members saw that as a personal attack towards Horror. You don't walk into a company and seek somebodies removal, that's just not right or fair, at all. You handle that situation discreet and talk with the people first. Horror did overreact, yes, because he lost control over his feelings and brought them to his workplace. You don't do that, that's right. But he stepped back. What do you want him to do additionally? Do you want to see his head roll, for this stupid thing? People will not even talk about it, in a coupple of days.

I don't think it had anything to do with attention (apart from the regular stream monsters spamming). Streamers were genuinely angry at Horror. Also the staff members were unwilling to talk it out with people. They were banning streamers after they had stopped streaming and went to bed.

Because, at that point it got already out of control. Like I said, the guy got a fair warning from the staff member. He wanted to prevent people bashing a single person. And admins or staff member have access to your previous post history. So, after other admins got called to look into it, those admins decided, that it wasn't okay. An other thing is, that they were backseat moderating, I'm pretty sure, that it's bannable on NeoGAF, too.

I'm not saying, that it was right or wrong, but that doesn't matter anymore, because those people are already unbanned.

---

You guys need to let go of it. It's every time the same, if there is a drama. Give people an other chance and ask yourself, what you would do in that situation. It's not easy.

Edit:
thegreatgq > any admins.

Agreed. GQ is a great guy and he tolerates nearly everything.
 
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