Greetings to our lovely community!

While we don’t normally make public statements concerning the disciplinary/banning process, we have taken note of unusually widespread confusion as to what’s going on in that department. Though we could just remain silent and keep everyone guessing, we care too much to do that, so we’re going to try and dispel some of the misconceptions we’ve been seeing.

Banning Takes Too Long

First of all, please know that—when it comes to banning an individual from Game Jolt—time is required to properly evaluate situations before taking action. Sometimes that means days, weeks, or even months depending on the complexity of the situation and amount of solid evidence. Believe us when we say it can get ridiculously complicated determining who is in the right, who is in the wrong, or if there has just been a huge misunderstanding between well-meaning individuals of vastly different backgrounds.

Users Should Be Warned

Before taking disciplinary action, we send users emails that inform them about any content of theirs that has been removed, which site guidelines have been broken, etc. This can be considered a light warning. If the same behavior continues, we put the users in time-out to allow them the opportunity to review our Site Guidelines (provided to them directly) and adjust their conduct upon their return. Being put in time-out is a stronger warning. If they return from time-out and continue the same exact behavior once again, or try to evade the time-out by creating a new account, we have no other option but to ban them since all reasoning and counsel have been dismissed.

Game Jolt is rapidly growing, something that excites us to no end, but even so, we take the time to send warnings to our users ahead of any disciplinary action, aside from the occasional cases of spam accounts and undeniably severe offenses. We realize that the volume of our userbase should in no way diminish the quality of our moderation!

Helpers Wrongly Punished

As to those who have been disciplined for “helping” with cases of drama, please be aware that harassment is harassment regardless of the reason behind it; retaliation or negatively calling out individuals violates our guidelines. The greatest help users can offer is by using the reporting system from an offending user’s profile, posts, or comments. Legitimate reports are vital in bringing our attention to unpleasant situations! They are taken very seriously, considered on an individual basis, and false reports are easily detected and dealt with.

There have been cases of some stating that those trying to help without saying anything offensive end up wrongly being disciplined. Do keep in mind that offenses can be difficult to see from a user-level perspective; our moderators have access to a vast amount of information and interactions between users, wrongful accusations, and other events that go unseen. It can be painful to believe that someone we are fond of could have crossed the boundaries of our site’s guidelines, but there can be no favoritism in community moderation.

User Feedback Silenced

While we encourage feedback that could help us improve, there is a big difference between constructive criticism and harassment. Spam or suggestions delivered with crude or abusive wording will be removed like any other offensive content. Posts submitted to the Game Jolt community also have to follow the community’s rules found on its frontpage, as is the case with any other community.

Improve Site Moderation

All of that said, moderation is something that we actively work to improve, though such changes can be difficult to see from the user-level. We ourselves certainly wouldn’t be satisfied with a static system when the needs of our community are always changing!

We greatly appreciate your passion for the health of the site. It shows that you care. That means a lot to all of us and drives us to continue doing our absolute best! We among the Game Jolt team care about all of you; our guidelines and the disciplinary action that is administered is founded on our love for our community and our desire to make Game Jolt the best place ever!