We asked YoVillians what they thought of the YoVille Forum Moderators.
Ninja! The word conjures up an image of a robed warrior, face covered, striking fear into everyone he meets – dark, deadly, skillful in the ancient martial arts and capable of slaying whenever necessary. Forget Sho Kosugi, Richard Harrison or even the Turtles! Here, we are taking forum moderators. Zynga staff employed to watch over the forums, and, well… ‘moderate’.
The Free Dictionary describes a moderator as:
1. One that moderates, as:
a. One that arbitrates or mediates.
b. One who presides over a meeting, forum, or debate.
Lazza Rose: A problem I have on the forums is with one Purple Ninja. She’s rude, inconsiderate of others, and has deleted all my threads concerning the gifting issue, and changed some of my threads. An example of this is my question about the removed clothing item from the Brilliant theme. After a record 1 minute, my thread was closed and the topic changed to cover up the name, deeming it “Inappropiate”.
Just a year ago, you would be allowed to voice your opinions on any feature you don’t like on YoVille. Not today. All the threads I’ve seen on the protests (July 1) have been deleted and closed. If one were to post more than one topic about it, they’d get an infraction… Overall, I don’t think the forums are being used for what they’re supposed to be used for. Forums are meant to be ameeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. Instead, it’s just being used to advertise new items instores. We aren’t allowed to express our opinions anymore.
Teresa Lawson: I have often had questions answered by ninja’s although I have not been on a lot the last few months. I always found Black helpful but have had trouble with Purple. My trouble mainly was moving of threads from discussions to feedback where fewer people visit. I was annoyed when that happened because I felt they were trying to bury my topic. I now tend to contact support directly rather than post in the forums because I have come to believe that a ninja reporting a problem has no more weight than me reporting it.
Ryan Gibbs: Ninjas can be a lot of help at times, We all know that. Like Purple Ninja, has taught me a lot about how to work my computer and how to clear cache, cookies, etc. But, whenever a well known forumer post in the Discussions area of Forums talking about Nicki Minaj or even the sky it stays their. Others and I who have a post count below 10,000 can ask a question or talk about something yoville related and it gets moved to OT (off topic). It proves Ninjas do have favorites. I also don’t understand why they have like 10 ninjas patrolling forums, and like 2 people in game watching for hackers and cheaters. I also made a post about my friend (she was a yovillian) and we met in real life, webcammed, FB chat, and everything. But she commited suicide last month. And I made a post about her, asking other yo’s to show their respect to Angie. But two of the noob ninja’s inbox me, saying my post was deleted and the next was saying if I continued to talk about Angie I would get a violation. I mean, I just lost my friend, and their giving me violations over it? Really?!?! But also, Ruby can throw one heck of a forum party. She is really funny and nice. I personally think the newer ninja’s are ruining the forums.
Hailen Hubak: Some of the ninjas are kind and easy to get along with, other ninjas are too uptight and can make you mad. This one ninja closed up a sales thread because it said the person was leaving Yoville and having an inventory sale. The ninja closed it up because you are not allowed to talk about leaving Yoville. What the heck?! She said she was having an inventory sale but gave a reason why. Instead of closing the thread, the ninja could of pm’ed her or removed that part from her thread! Another issue is drama. A girl was having a sales thread when this other person came and started creating drama on that thread. So a ninja closed it up because there is a no drama rule! This ninja basically ruined and punished her for having a sales thread instead of punishing the person who started the fight. I know lots of people have a problem with Purple Ninja. I can understand why, it’s mainly because she’s just one of those people that like to be in charge. Nothing wrong with that but it does get annoying if someone always tells you what you can and cannot do. It sometimes leads to other things though like picking favorites and other weird things. Some ninjas have favorites who may break the rules but don’t get a warning. Like I said, some ninjas are more likeable than others.
Anonymous: I first started playing Yoville in December of 2008, because of a severe spinal injury I received in a car accident, I was basically home bound with the exception of doctor visits. Life had become rather boring and tedious and I really was looking for a creative outlet to keep me on a positive, even keel while I recovered. In the beginning the game was fun and very exciting. Everyone you met in front of Alton Towers and even people I met through various add sights ended up being dear friends. I played the game constantly and managed to learn the in’s and out’s of all aspects of the game. Once I had a pretty good understanding of how everything worked I joined the forums with the intent on helping newer players and posting suggestions on what I thought would help improve game play. In the beginning of my foray into the forums the ‘ninjas’ were friendly enough and even helpful in most cases. I almost started to enjoy the forums as much as the game, but I was more drawn to my houses and friends in game and pages like Yo Rehab and a few others.
Everything was moving right along in game and in the forums, until the new ‘ninjas’ showed up and began to become very rude and nasty as it related to any negative or untoward comment about Yoville, Zynga or any posted issues players were experiencing. My first other than pleasant experience was with a new ‘ninja’, was Ruby. I posted on the forum that I had found a new scam going on in the factory and wanted to warn other players. One of my best friends in game, who is also handicap became frozen in the factory and had her entire cache of coins taken, so I posted about this potential new scam.
I posted it in the right thread and did not want it to happen to anyone else. My friend was truly heartbroken. Lo and behold it was immediately closed of course. Even though I posted it in the “bugs thread” , I got a near instant response stating that my friend should contact support for assistance. I responded, Well she did contact support as well as all of our friends and nothing happened, so all of our friends gave her 50k and tons of collectables to make it up to her. The support team and the ninjas don’t seem to care to help or want to warn others of what is going on. The next few threads I posted have gotten even nastier responses from the ninjas.
I then made a post asking why the ninjas were nasty to me and asked if anyone else was being treated this way and it was closed right away of course and i got a PM from Cadet Blue Ninja – a ‘friendly reminder regarding our Forum’s Rules of Conduct’.
Now I see there pets bump tons of posts so this was new to me, so I just asked why I was singled out?! I am so disgusted and heartbroken with this game. I spend days in bed after spinal surgeries and this is my only way out of my home. I cant safely go to a event because of the hacking and freezing and ridiculous lack of help and support. I miss my game and my friends, I am truly sad and know that these ninjas really do not deserve their jobs. I don’t understand it and we don’t deserve it. Why won’t they admit they have issues and post honest answers on what they are doing to make it better instead of throwing you threats of being banned or suspended because you bring up a real, imminent threat to their players? My opinion is that Yoville is a failing concept for Zynga, it’s one of their lower ranking games. OK so it’s not the biggest game and doesn’t make a ton of money like the rest, but there are still thousands of players that do play the game and do spend money buying in game cash. It’s a matter of respect. I spend a ton of time and money on this game and people are scamming and stealing and ruining the game and making it such a burden to play now. I am so frustrated and just want to walk away from a game I once loved. You cant honestly tell me, that nobody there sees what’s happening. Ninja’s know and just want to maintain a happy , comfort level on the forums and close anything negative or questionable. Why can’t they just say hey, well will look into that and get back with you, then actually get back with you, with a realistic honest solution to in game issues?
Because what’s been happening, all my friends are quitting and I am one of the last 08 players I know. This game has broken my heart one to many times! Thank you for hearing my story
