Hello,
So, I thought I would make a post addressing some of the issues that people contact us about.
Firstly there's the issue of the mean spirited websites that people create to talk about MyVMK players. Whilst we absolutely do not condone this kind of behaviour, there is nothing we can do to stop it. We have contacted the hosts about these kinds of websites before, but they tell us they won't delete the websites (which was what we expected). We have no way of shutting them down or finding out who runs them, and we're just as upset about them as you are.
Secondly a lot of people seem to take issue with how reports are handled and how we moderate. The way it works is when something gets reported, it creates a kind of "ticket" in the game (click here to see an image) that supplies all of the information available to us about it. From there, a moderator can investigate by viewing the chat logs of the reported users or rooms.
What we can't do however is moderate things that aren't reported, or that happen outside of the game. Everything that happens in the game we can confirm and see for sure that it actually happened. But if something isn't on the game, we can be sent screenshots and things but there's no way to confirm that they're real, it doesn't take long to photoshop a Skype conversation for example, and even then I don't personally think we should act on things that happen outside of the game. However, if something happens somewhere else you can report it to the place where it happened (for instance Facebook, tumblr) and if you would like help with how to do that you can email me (amy@myvmk.com) and I will try to help in any way that I can.
If something isn't reported, there's no way we can know it happened. We don't read all of the chat in game (which I think most of you would be glad about), so we can't see every incident that happens. The way we handle reports is usually by looking at what happened, deciding what broke which rule, and then acting on it based on what the moderation policy says to do. Usually there are warnings before any bans, and the warnings expire after a set amount of time (months). If the moderators deem something to be very serious, they can give longer bans or skip the warning. This is done indiscriminately, as in if you respond to someone breaking the rules by breaking the rules, YOU can still get in trouble. If something happens, the best thing you can do is press the ignore button and report them.
Please remember though that we're a team of volunteers and there's not always somebody around to answer your reports immediately, usually there is but we all have lives outside of the game and because we can't pay anyone for their help, there's no way to guarantee there will always be a moderator, we have a lot of moderators though so it's rare there wouldn't be one around. Even if your report doesn't get dealt with immediately though, it will be responded to as soon as it is seen by a moderator (unhandled reports show up as red in the list of them for a moderator). You can also send us longer and more detailed reports by sending an email to contact@myvmk.com.
We are also in the process of reworking our rules to make them more clear, and we may also be making changes to our moderation policy soon (so if there's anything you think we don't do well, now would be the time to let us know).
Thank you for reading, I hope this addresses any concerns you might have had, feel free to respond to this message directly with questions or concerns if you have any. Also remember, if you need to, you can always contact me directly and confidentially (as in if you ask me to not tell anyone about what you're saying or who you are in an email, I won't) at amy@myvmk.com, I reply to every email I get on there (I don't get many ).
So, I thought I would make a post addressing some of the issues that people contact us about.
Firstly there's the issue of the mean spirited websites that people create to talk about MyVMK players. Whilst we absolutely do not condone this kind of behaviour, there is nothing we can do to stop it. We have contacted the hosts about these kinds of websites before, but they tell us they won't delete the websites (which was what we expected). We have no way of shutting them down or finding out who runs them, and we're just as upset about them as you are.
Secondly a lot of people seem to take issue with how reports are handled and how we moderate. The way it works is when something gets reported, it creates a kind of "ticket" in the game (click here to see an image) that supplies all of the information available to us about it. From there, a moderator can investigate by viewing the chat logs of the reported users or rooms.
What we can't do however is moderate things that aren't reported, or that happen outside of the game. Everything that happens in the game we can confirm and see for sure that it actually happened. But if something isn't on the game, we can be sent screenshots and things but there's no way to confirm that they're real, it doesn't take long to photoshop a Skype conversation for example, and even then I don't personally think we should act on things that happen outside of the game. However, if something happens somewhere else you can report it to the place where it happened (for instance Facebook, tumblr) and if you would like help with how to do that you can email me (amy@myvmk.com) and I will try to help in any way that I can.
If something isn't reported, there's no way we can know it happened. We don't read all of the chat in game (which I think most of you would be glad about), so we can't see every incident that happens. The way we handle reports is usually by looking at what happened, deciding what broke which rule, and then acting on it based on what the moderation policy says to do. Usually there are warnings before any bans, and the warnings expire after a set amount of time (months). If the moderators deem something to be very serious, they can give longer bans or skip the warning. This is done indiscriminately, as in if you respond to someone breaking the rules by breaking the rules, YOU can still get in trouble. If something happens, the best thing you can do is press the ignore button and report them.
Please remember though that we're a team of volunteers and there's not always somebody around to answer your reports immediately, usually there is but we all have lives outside of the game and because we can't pay anyone for their help, there's no way to guarantee there will always be a moderator, we have a lot of moderators though so it's rare there wouldn't be one around. Even if your report doesn't get dealt with immediately though, it will be responded to as soon as it is seen by a moderator (unhandled reports show up as red in the list of them for a moderator). You can also send us longer and more detailed reports by sending an email to contact@myvmk.com.
We are also in the process of reworking our rules to make them more clear, and we may also be making changes to our moderation policy soon (so if there's anything you think we don't do well, now would be the time to let us know).
Thank you for reading, I hope this addresses any concerns you might have had, feel free to respond to this message directly with questions or concerns if you have any. Also remember, if you need to, you can always contact me directly and confidentially (as in if you ask me to not tell anyone about what you're saying or who you are in an email, I won't) at amy@myvmk.com, I reply to every email I get on there (I don't get many ).