The Information Desk: Ask questions about the site here!
- Thread starter Prof Gallows
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xSuperMario64x
a very tired Bug 🪲💤
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you would make a request thread in The Museum Shop
Alolan_Apples
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When the rules say not to target the staff, what does that mean? Does it mean that you can’t frequently send them random VMs about hobbies and not towards any other members, or does it mean like you shouldn’t be flaming or trolling them like everyone else? I like to chat with the staff, even if I don’t get a response, but I don’t know how far I could go until it’s considered harassment (which I wouldn’t try to follow that route).
Whenever you delete your avatar, it reverts back to the default forum avatar, which as you mentioned is just a square with the first letter/number/character of your username. Whether or not a user chooses to delete their avatar when going on hiatus or leaving the site is entirely up to them. I personally haven't whenever I've taken a hiatus.
Shawna
AroAce, ASD, and Proud ^^
Ohhh I see. Thank you for answering.
Usually when "target" is used as an internet term, it usually means to like criticize, bully, harass, etc. a particular person, so as long as you are not doing any of those things, I don't think you are "targeting" anyone. ^^
As for their limits in terms of receiving VMs/DMs, I am not sure. I am sure the limits vary from staff member to staff member. It might be worth asking some of them directly.
Alolan_Apples
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Thanks for answering. But when I’m talking about limits, I’m not referring to capacity. I’m referring to stuff like this:Ohhh I see. Thank you for answering.
Usually when "target" is used as an internet term, it usually means to like criticize, bully, harass, etc. a particular person, so as long as you are not doing any of those things, I don't think you are "targeting" anyone. ^^
As for their limits in terms of receiving VMs/DMs, I am not sure. I am sure the limits vary from staff member to staff member. It might be worth asking some of them directly.
- Five VMs a months to one staff member is fine, but 10 VMs towards the same staff member on the same day would be considered harassment.
- You can message more than one staff member in a day, but doing it to everyone everyday would be too excessive.
Aquilla
slow replies, reach me on discord if you need me🍁
Here are my two cents about this topic. I’m not a staff member and everyone has their own personal boundaries, so this is just how I see it.
Like with any social interactions it’s give and take between two parties. If the interest seems mutual, members of staff reply, seem interested or if you’ve been friends for a while, sending “random vms about hobbies” etc sounds ok to me. If they have explicitly told you “hey I love chatting hit me up any time“ - sounds great, go for it!
If they don’t get back to you, have not explicitly invited unsolicited pms or the conversation doesn’t flow, I’d personally not keep contacting someone to respect their boundaries. I don’t see the point in sending pms into a void of silence and would prefer to have an actual conversation with someone. Staff probably have to go through a lot of administrative stuff, reports and notifications (all while having other jobs, relationships and a social life) so there might not be enough time to get to everyone’s personal messages, especially if you’re not friends to begin with.
So if the question is how many random pms can I send to someone in a month when they are not responsive without it feeling like harassment or straight up annoying, I’d personally leave it at one, max two initiations and leave the person alone after (also in the coming months). If they wanna get to know you they’ll come to you.
Alolan_Apples
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Yeah, when there are other responsibilities to take care of, like work, school, and kids, and then they have to listen to reports and help users with individual problems, responding to trivial PMs and VMs are like one of the last things to do. They will send you a PM if you’re asking for help or put yourself on a path to receiving an infraction, but they don’t think it’s necessary to give infractions at that point.
So the ultimate answer to my question about “targeting” staff members is that you shouldn’t provoke them, outright insult them, or stalk them, as individual members or as a whole team. You shouldn’t do this to anyone, but I think they added this rule because of others’ rude responses to how they do their work, such as issuing infractions or deleting posts they want to keep.
Shawna
AroAce, ASD, and Proud ^^
I don't know if this was answered already, but I think the latter means the profile was deleted. I also noticed that usernames of deleted profiles will be a brownish color, rather than black.
Well, for me, I don't message staff members on any forum unless it's an actual concern, I personally know them, or we're doing a transaction. I just let them do their job. They probably receive many messages a day about a lot of random things and don't have time for one-on-one chit chat.
As we're talking about DM's, I'll share a thing about me. Occasionally, I'll get a random DM here from someone wanting to chat. The thing is, I don't feel very comfortable if it's not on a public forum topic and it's not a thing I'd expect if I asked for something in the Museum Shop, Amiibo Trading Post, and so on. I just tend to ignore the message. Yeah, it seems a bit rude to ignore, but I don't want to block the user if they either have good intentions or aren't a spambot. These are mostly people I don't know in real life or don't talk to frequently on forum topics, so there's that. Heck, even seeing a forum user's real-life selfie makes me unusually uncomfortable. Why that is, I don't know. I'm pretty sure everyone on here looks lovely in real life, but I'm way more comfortable seeing AC player characters resembling themselves.
It's my social anxiety mainly. It's very hard to get me started with talking to and liking someone, but once I get past that phase, there's many times where I never seem to shut up. I even over-explain things a lot in some topics I have an interest in. I guess that's what my mind wants to do once I get off work and have no one to talk to in real life.
Alolan_Apples
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I feel you here. We all have our own things we don’t like about other members that don’t bother others or aren’t against the rules. For me, I don’t like being blocked by other members, seeing old threads from six months or longer bumped, or art shops only accepting real money. Those stuff are fine until they become a problem, yet there’s always going to be someone that isn’t fine.
The staff could also not be as responsive to fun messages because we’re in a period of low activity. When Animal Crossing comes out on the Switch 2, they might be able to do that more.
Yeah, there are times when I want to keep posting things, but I have to limit myself when it gets late where I live (Michigan) and nothing new shows up for over 30 minutes. I don't want to seem like I'm wanting attention, but I feel like I'm properly contributing to every topic I decide to post in. I'm just happy to be finally sharing my knowledge of the series after holding back on it for so long! I wish I joined TBT when New Leaf still had hype, as I'm pretty sure I'd be talking my brain out. The members here are much nicer than every other forum I've been on combined.
A bit off-topic, but back then, I was way more focused on Grand Theft Auto (completely different genre of game I know). I was actually a moderator for a few years in a 3rd-party hosted online deathmatch server back in the day, so I still know a few things about handling misconduct amongst members. They even had their own forum where I was also a moderator. I wish I could take myself back to those days, but that server is long gone by now.
Belle T
head thoughts, no empty
You can disable DM's in the privacy settings. Can't feel guilty about ignoring them if you nobody can send them in the first place.
Oh, I know about that. This type of thing hasn't happened in a while, so I'm leaving them open for shop inquiries.
But really, I've turned into a person that just abhors negativity. If I feel like I've upset someone accidentally, I'll feel bad even if it's only minor. My goal lately is to remain positive, and to try and mute out things that may upset me. New Horizons, this forum, and all the old music I've been listening to have really done wonders for my mental wellbeing. Now all that's left is to find someone my age in real life that will understand what I like and who I am. Needle in a haystack.
Random question that has nothing to do what I was just talking about:
Is there an easy way on here to add indentations to text lines when starting a new paragraph? I can't seem to figure it out if it's a thing or not.
Is there an easy way on here to add indentations to text lines when starting a new paragraph? I can't seem to figure it out if it's a thing or not.
Thanks for the reminder! I've just added it.
No. Aquilla gave a perfectly good explanation before, it would be a shame to dismiss that and blame it on lower activity instead.
I agree with this: if there are no obvious mutual interests or other bases of friendship then anything beyond small talk won't work. I personally do like having friendly chats sometimes (note that it also varies across the staff team how open people are to casual banter) but I still would be very reluctant to put thought and effort into a conversation that only the other person is interested in.
Being on the staff team we try to treat everyone respectfully, but this politeness does not mean we want to be friends with everyone. Getting targeted with random messages because you're on the staff team is like someone approaching you on the street because you wore a white shirt that day, and they always try to befriend people with white shirts - it just doesn't work.
To answer your initial question: the rule about harassment is meant to convey that we will not tolerate behaviour toward us that we would not tolerate to other users. Still, I think what Aquilla wrote is fantastic advice that doesn't just apply to staff. Not everyone is interested in being your friend, just like you most likely wouldn't want to be friends with everyone.
