Qeight

You are not getting it, if we make one exception, we open something we do not want. Why should you be allowed to speak PT when a PT staff is around but someone else is not allowed to speak french when a non french speaking staff is around. This is inconsistency we will not deal with.

I will only comment on this shortly and give a nuclear take on it. For all I care "te amo" could mean "fuck you". Almost everything is written in English, except a small portion of the new website therefore in all our channels the English only rule applies. There is the "Other Chat" or private chat channels where you can speak other languages but those are not heavily moderated as we do not have the manpower to moderate in every language. If there are staff members who speak the language they should moderate those channels. If a Moderator or any moderation staff can not understand what you are typing without googling it then it will not be allowed. It's English only for a reason. The apprentice did nothing wrong here neither did any other staff member who enforces this rule. If I can not understand what you are saying then it will be not be allowed. Also to address any "but that is racist" cards some might want to play, literally 75% of our moderation staff are not from primary English speaking countries yet they understand that this has to be a thing. A staff member who abuses their powers, shows any form of bias or favoritism will be sanctioned. It is not only against our own Code of Conduct but it also breaks our staff rules (we do have rules as well as a punishment policy specifically for staff members).

It's a good idea, I believe it was brought up in our staff discord as well. I am not too sure if its possible if I am being honest with you.

I will quote Logan here: The Game Master Team and the Trade Moderator Team have currently struggles with activity due to real life responsibilities. Game Masters can't just be recruited out of the blue, they consist out of the most trusted and veteran staff members. Not everyone qualifies for that position. Trade Moderators (all of them are busy IRL, education related (graduations, exams etc). This is the reason why Trade reports are stacking up quite a bit (we receive hundreds of reports regarding trades), the Moderator team doesn't have this issue as we rarely receive PvP related reports and a normal size of chat reports. I personally check every appeal and every report for every staff member every 2-3 weeks in order for them being replied to in case they were missed. This process sometimes takes hours but makes the job of our staff easier. Old ones: Current one is stickied for all moderation staff to see:

The user was warned which meant everyone who was active at the time saw it and that warning counted for them as well. It would be not only counterproductive but also insane to expect us to warn everyone individually. You saw the warning AND yet used vulgar language as well. There isn't really an excuse for that. The warning is right there, I posted a screenshot of it. The rules are also very clear about it. There was a warning, Starkrey didn't get muted because he stopped after the warning. It's quite simple, Moderators or any moderation staff warn users/the chat first before they mute. A mute is just that a mute. Mutes are not saved on your punishment record and they have barely any impact on future sanctions. The main things are quiet-bans, a mute just stops you from chatting for 60 seconds while quiet-bans will stop you from interacting for days. If you want to take it that way, mutes are just warnings before a quiet-ban is actually issued. It's common procedure and the mute was correct, there is simply a different in what players see in a mute and what staffs sse in a mute.

An opinion is fine, speaking untruths is not. Can you explain why our moderation team is the worst, if so can you give us examples on how to improve? The warning the chat received: The 60 seconds mute you received: Why you received the mute: We do not tolerate vulgar language, in this particular context football became a topic that was sparked with players being passionate about it and letting their emotions out which meant swearing and using vulgar language. Yes football is not a sensitive topic but in this particular context you guys were using vulgar language and were swearing left and right. The narrative that you were muted for talking about football is simply wrong and not at all accurate. We do not want to call out players for their mistakes, god knows we all make mistakes but players hold week, month even year long grudges over nothing, false information, lies, manipulations and such. This thread is meant for improvements, we obviously give counterpoints and explain why we do certain things the way we do them as we believe our rules are good. Are they perfect? No but we can not see a whole lot more improvements than we already did. That's why we ask our community what they do not like and what can be improved upon. It doesn't surprise me whatsoever that players with a long punishment record are speaking up here about how terrible the moderation system is, I expected as much but teerav's comment is exactly what we are looking for. Someone who can critically think for themselves, give arguments and state what they believe should be a thing. Nonsense complaining about past infractions is not at all useful. RMT is something Logan would have to talk to you about, it's not my area nor do I believe our ways should be made public (just because players will avoid them, try to stay hidden). Players do not randomly get banned, even if they give away everything on their accounts. (e.g Darkin gave me every single item and Pokemon he owned on my player account). RMT is a complex subject, giving away free stuff is obviously not against our rules. I can easily speak about abusive bans, unfair bans and such because as a player I was treated as such. I know what it feels like, I know what it meant when staffs make up stuff about you but don't have the evidence for anything. It was my goal to root out everything that was even remotely like the past staff team. I can promise you that we will unban EVERYONE who was unfairly banned if they appeal their bans and we deem that those bans were indeed unfair. In fact I already did that a bunch. It is sadly the truth that bad stuff happened in the past, no doubt about that. I felt it myself so its even more a reason to change what has to be changed.

This is literally why we are making this thread to see what our community thinks about our rules, we wouldn't have them if we didn't think they were good. We want to know which rules we can improve upon, what can be done better and such. This comment literally helps us 0%. Players are never banned for "stupid" reasons let alone for "no reason". Those claims come up a ton of times but are unfounded, find me a user that was banned without reason or with a "stupid" reason. We ban if there is evidence and a rule has been broken, nothing less than that. Random bans would quickly result in staff removal. From my experience as player I can speak very accurately about that, I don't believe I would be staff right now if we had staff members who ban over nothing or stupid reasons. You know as well as I do that you were not muted for talking about football. I checked our logs about it again, you were muted for using vulgar language after a moderator warned in chat about it just a few minutes prior. Players are not muted for random stuff and giving out inaccurate information just spreads hate towards that staff that isn't necessary. You were muted for using vulgar language after a warning was given not because you were talking about football. Examples, if you don't want to name them publicly, DM me about it. We do not tolerate any form of abuse and rigorously remove or suspend abusive staffs. Users' often claim its power abuse when in reality they did a mistake and are too proud to admit it or are simply misinformed, like you with your mute about "football". Will not happen, MAJORITY of bans are botters, realmoneytraders and cheaters. Players we do not want to see in our game, there are not that many "toxicity" permbans, actually to receive a permban for toxicity now you need an EXTENSIVE record something like 7-8-9 offenses and at that point well you kind of deserve to be banned with constantly breaking our rules. If you find me users' who were banned for toxicity in the past and they have a decent appeal, we are more than willing to unban. I gave users' more than 2 chances, I received mine and made the best out of it.

I will respond adequately in the upcoming week ^^

"Simple" was just an expression used, it wasn't mean that your examples were complicated or anything ^^ It was more like "That is very simple to explain why we do this"

With all due respect to this community, they can be very demanding for things that we don't have time for. From my personal experience I disable my PMs always ever since I get spammed with stuff that simply I can not answer or are a time-consuming (time we don't have) (eg. battle requests, asking for new content, rating Pokemon etc). As I said before, it's not required for Moderators to socialize, it makes moderating go by easier for some, for others its a distraction. We will not force them to do something they are not comfortable with. In-game moderation can be very stressful and hectic, keep in mind they have to look at every chat at once and enforce rules everywhere, getting sidetracked by something can easily result in stuff being missed or overlooked. On a personal note I like to keep my distant when doing staff duties, keep my mind clear from any bias, mixing that up relations I have as a player carries sometimes negative sideeffects, such as bias accusations and such. Trade Moderators are currently slammed with work IRL, graduations, IRL things that happened and therefore we experienced quite the delay with Trade Reports. At some point non of them were active so Logan had to cover a lot. IRL comes over PRO, so slight delays may happen. Trade Reports have to be done by Trade Moderators, while everyone in the Moderator team is active, we still couldn't deal with those reports. The report reply you received is the same reply everyone else would receive, as you mentioned everything that was necesary, there was no need to ask for further evidence or ask further questions. Just this month there were over 150 Trade reports, those take time. It's not a one and done thing, those things need investigations, proper appliance of our policies and rules, especially when its regarding auctions. I am not quite sure what you are expecting from the report reply but we can not give you any details of further actions, nor can we keep you in the loop of what will happen. So what else do you expect here? Before your report come 20 others, the report has to be discussed and appropriate levels of punishment have to be applied. That on top of any further investigations. If everything was just a 5 minute job our lives would be a lot easier but this isn't the case. I again don't understand what kind of reply you are looking for here. We preach 1 hour per day and that IRL comes before PRO, which are valid statements. We are as you said yourself just volunteers and come from different parts of the world. Nobody needs to speak flawlessly English or needs to have the best punctuation but they commit their free time to help the game. Staffs go through a lengthy apprenticeship and they wouldn't be promoted if they were incompetent. Team Leaders, this is already a thing If you believe the Team Leaders were wrong an Admin comes into play If you still believe an Admin was wrong, the Senior Admin or a Dev come into play and their judgement is final I speak out of experience here, there are enough lairs of protection now to avoid those things. The trade-offs are not worth it, harassing reporters, giving away certain GM procedures nobody besides GMs and Admins know are simply to be kept confidential. You are not banned out of the blue with nothing as evidence, there are actually quite a few staffs who would be very vocal about unjustified bans, myself included. Investigation bans are applied in cases where serious harm can be done and only the user itself can answer questions about it e.g Real Money Trading, Boosting, Account Hacks etc Investigation bans do require evidence and are not done out of the blue however they are mostly done because we need the FULL picture of what is happening, we had enough to ban already but want the full picture to understand everything properly. I'll bring this idea up, sounds reasonable. :) If you have anything further to add feel free^^ I will comment on the things you said, not for you personally but for everyone else reading it. 2 years ago the rules were way stricter, you received permbans easier, policies were stricter I only remember once case where it was a mistake that was fixed. This is nothing common nor is it tolerated, those things obviously need to be backed up with any form of proof which you do not have. For us its important that we can actually see proof of any accusations otherwise everyone can just claim whatever they want, destroy reputations for no reason at all. It's actually quite sad to see this happening from our community more often than we would like to admit. The issue with a lot of people is that they are afraid of saying things, standing up for what is right in a RESPECTFUL manner. There are players who can do that like teerav but then there are players who just flat out harass, insult or defame staffs for not doing what they want. I speak out of personal experience here as I was one of the more controversial players, long punishment history and such. I felt what it meant to be targeted by staff etc. I was no saint but I also wasn't the devil. It was one of my goals as staff to create an environment where everyone can express themselves without feeling oppressed or targeted afterwards. Also if I am being completely honest and transparent here, a lot who claim they are innocent, never did anything or say they feel targeted or something are the ones who do the most offenses, break the most rules, lie the most. We are not about to public shame users' but if we could do that our community would realize some things for sure. A lot claim bias when there is no bias, some players hold grudges for weeks and months over nothing such as not accepting certain evidence. I know why you wrote those things but if you actually went into yourself and thought about your past, you would understand that certain actions are not okay. Simple, make on exception you have to accept every exception. Its for consistency purposes. I don't know the specifics but does being happy or excited give you the rights to spam? What kind of spam? There is missing context here to properly judge the situation. The easiest way is actually using /pm <username> but I believe I know what you are talking about here and this has been already addressed internally. :P We are completely separate from the Discord, we do not control it or have any influence over it. We can not offer 24/7 support regardless even if this were a thing. Reports are your best bet if no Moderator is around. As I said, 24/7 support is sadly not possible and even if staffs are on their player accounts, this doesn't mean they are now online to moderate. I speak for myself now, when I did the Manaphy quest or the Shaymin quest, I completely turned off the chat and hid it because I didn't want to see it. A staff member who is revealed has sadly to live with the "loss of peace" when they are online on their playeraccounts due to stuff like that.

Staff members need special permissions that require a new account, new name, new ingame identity. Its for the staffs own good that they are hidden and not known for a few months before they reveal. I am not sure if I understand you correctly so can you maybe rephrase it if this isn't the answer you were looking for. PvP Council is an undecided thing however if it were to happen the council members can have a punishment history (outside of boosting offenses) as long as they can keep a civil discussion and are not toxic. On an English level that is understandable for everyone of course. Not everything is taken serious however we have to keep a certain level of professionalism. It certainly would be a much appreciated feature and was suggested a ton of times, its up to Devs though and their time/priority working list. For weeks now we have one active Community Coordinator who pulls in 10-15 hours per day alone just with forum and in-game stuff. Community Coordinator are exactly that and quite honestly majority of staff will help you or redirect you to the place where you can get help. Community Coordinators are not working on reports at all, they are the bridge between the community and staff however they have certain abilities to sanction users if necessary but its not their main duty. Too many warnings, mutes, bans. It was uncomfortable to moderate for the community as well as for some staff members. The change in itself wasn't necessary but I believe it was for the better. It's not like "rate x pokemon" matters in any chat, it's meaningless in 999/1000 cases as they are just searching for gratification about their Pokemon. It's the same in every chat, rating questions are meaningless but our community for some reason values them. If it were up to me I would ban it entirely as its just meaningless but I believe players should be able to ask whatever they want whereever they want without being too heavily restricted.

It's funny that you are bringing this up as we had this discussion the other with moderation staff. Moderators in particular are trained to moderate, they are not trained to have all the game knowledge like a CC for example. Their main duty when logging into the game with their staff account is to moderate the chats, it is up to them if they want to engage in conversations or not. For me personally I engage when I feel like it or like the subject, have something to say. We are not there to socialize with our staff accounts. Some staffs see this differently but in the end we can't force anyone to have conversations about very banal things just because players want to talk to a staff member. A lot of community members have a ton of knowledge about the game or even new content after it was released, Moderators for example often times do not have the time to play or know everything about it. I can obviously only speak for my team but we all are rather quiet while enforcing the rules, some talk, some talk when they feel like it. I'll bring this subject up again within moderation channels.

Should beggers on the street be jailed or punished for begging? It's something I thought about quite a bit actually ever since you brought it up, its a bit more complicated than just flat out banning it. No player gets banned for "no reason", that assumption is just flat out wrong. Your friend was unbanned because it was proven that he wasn't breaking the rules but it appeared that way (very minor offense and literally everyone gets unbanned from it). They are actually being banned, all of them and if you know someone is cheating then you can simply report them. I can see that you never reported anyone for that. You were banned under an old system that was faulty and has been removed a long time ago however you admitted to cheating but claimed it was someone else. The appeal process goes always into one direction, is the user honest or not. You are responsible for your account, so blaming others will never get you unbanned. Appeal Rules: "Appeals which state that a third party caused the ban will be denied instantly. Third party = Brother, cousin, Godzilla, sentient headset, robotic arm, etc." We do stick by our rules very strictly.

Hello to all competitive PRO PvPers! This year, PRO Staff have decided to launch another Summer PvP Tournament, which is open to everyone who meets the requirements to sign up and wishes to participate. This is our 4th year hosting an annual PvP tournament! Are you ready to face off against the rest of your server to battle for bragging rights, and a unique reward to set you apart from the rest? A. The Tournament will consist of a double-elimination bracket. B. The bracket will be randomly seeded during a live-stream. C. Registration will begin on June 1, 2019, 00:00 GMT, and end on June 13, 2019, 00:00 GMT. D. Each round will last one week. The bracket draw will be streamed on June 14, 2019, and the first round will begin immediately. E. All matches prior to the Semifinals on both brackets will be best of 3. F. Semifinals, Winner's Finals, Losers' Finals, and Grand Finals will be best of 5. G. Should any circumstances necessitate changes to this format, Tournament Staff will give at least a week's notice before the tournament begins. H. Only one account per player may enter the tournament. I. Ghosting is forbidden. Players may seek assistance prior to matches, but may not confer with other players during the game or allow another player to play for them. J. The Pokemon pool of players will not be limited, so there is no need to register teams. A. All Ranked PvP Rules apply. B. In the event that any Ranked PvP Rules are changed while the tournament is in progress, the change takes effect immediately in this tournament as well. C. Should any moves, abilities, Pokemon, or items be coded between the start of the tournament and its end, those moves, abilities, Pokemon, or items may not be used. D. Players are not required to record matches, but it is recommended, as it may be impossible for staff to validate reports if they choose not to. E. Should any Ranked PvP Rule be broken, the offending player will forfeit the game. F. Should either player disconnect, the other player may either claim a game victory or allow a rematch at their discretion. G. Should the server crash during the game, a rematch is to be played with the same teams, unless a player demonstrates to Tournament Staff that they were in a position where they could not reasonably lose the game. A. Should any match fail to be completed, both players must submit evidence of activity to Tournament Staff. If Tournament Staff should decide that either player was not sufficiently active, that player shall be disqualified. If both (or neither) players were sufficiently active, the match will be decided by coin-flip. B. Any reports of participants breaking rules should be accompanied by as much evidence as possible, preferably video. Screenshots will reinforce your case, but may not be considered concrete proof. C. PRO Rules will continue to be enforced with no regard for the tournament. If an infraction would render a player unable to participate in a round, that player forfeits the round. D. Toxicity and despicable behavior will not be tolerated, both during matches as well as before and after. Sustained behavior of this sort may lead to disqualification. E. Match fixing is not tolerated. Players may not attempt to bribe or coerce other players to forfeit or intentionally play poorly. F. By entering the tournament, you agree that Tournament Staff have final say over all tournament-related decisions. A. All Pokemon used have to be Level 100. Fill out the following format and sent it to Qeight (Click here): Title of the Private message: PRO Tournament Registration [spoiler=Example:] You will be invited to our official Summer Tournament Discord through your registration PM. Registration has been closed! Do NOT sent me any PMs! - Pick one of the available and obtainable legendary Pokemon + 3x ~ 4x 31 IVs, 2x 30 IVs at maximum but IVs can be decided as you wish ~ Can be Shiny ~ Can choose Level ~ Can choose Moveset and EVs "Mew, Celebi, Jirachi, Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Latios, Latias, Phione, Heatran, Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf, Genesect, Darkrai, Registeel, Regice, Regirock, Manaphy, Shaymin/Shaymin-Sky" [spoiler=Some illustrative images] - Nature change OR Ability change OR 1x legendary shiny mount (Pick 2) + 2x - Nature change* OR Ability change OR 1x legendary shiny mount (Pick 1) + 1x *If the second place picked Nature change, the third place can not pick it [spoiler=Legendary Mounts Showcase] S Zapdos Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Articuno Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Moltres Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Latias Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Latios Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Raikou Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Entei Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Suicune Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] S Kyogre Mount [spoiler=Different Sideviews] - 1x Fox Mask OR 1x Pancham Hat OR 1x Black Petal Shaymin mount (Pick 1) [spoiler=Item Showcase] Disclaimer: The rewards will be for each server, the Top 15% may differ per server Contributions: Idkup, Fluffles, Shinohara, MagicGuard, Senrosia and Qeight

If you give us the exact dates the screenshots were taken then it can be used as supporting evidence however if you claim all of those were from yesterday and it comes out those were from 2 months ago you will see yourself in trouble. Chat reports should be done within a few days. If a user is repeating the same offense over and over again the punishment will increase obviously. I posted that in another thread: We are trained to collect as much evidence as possible, ask for more evidence when we believe the evidence wasn't the full story (example if the the private message is scrolled down to show just a certain aspect). The context does matter but we often times find ourselves having evidence of rule breaking offenses and those have to be punished regardless of circumstances. Lets make up a scenario, User A insults User B, User B insults back. User A screenshots how User B insults them. User A reports it, we would ask about the context/backstory and for more evidence. User A doesn't provide anything but User B still did break our rules by insulting User A. We have to take actions regardless if and we actually hope for that, User B has taken screenshots of how User A insulted first, User B would in most cases be unbanned and severe sanctions would be issued against the user who provided half the story.

Just to straight jump into this, you are only instantly muted for heavy insults, slurs and such. You can always expect to have a warning in Chat before you get muted. It is staff depending whether or not if they want to warn you directly or warn the chat however it makes not a whole lot of sense to warn everyone for everything. If there is a warning in chat about swearing just two minutes prior and you start to swear, it wouldn't be logical to warn you here. Apprentice are staff in training so they obviously will get something wrong from time to time that's why they are training. It comes with experience to issue quality warnings and fair mutes however the current Apprentice are doing a good job about it. You are not instantly muted for 1-5 minutes, there is a strict procedure in place when you get muted and for how long you get muted. By now its no secret that the first mute is always 60 seconds, the next one 120 seconds, the third one 300 seconds and after that you will be quiet-banned. It is obvious that after the 4 time breaking the rules that you are not getting it so a quiet-ban would be issued. This is actually very rare in my experience (in my almost 10 months now and over 300 hours in-game moderation, I muted maybe 40 times for 300 seconds and not even half of those resulted in quiet-bans). You are never banned for "no reason", a staff member who bans or mutes for "no reason" will be removed rather quickly (hasn't happened in my time as staff yet). There is a different definition for everyone, some think its okay to discuss murdering people with axes in a kids game, some think its okay to talk about sexual things in chat in a kids game but our stance on that is very clear that we do not allow such subjects. I don't know the specifics of what you are talking about but in a nutshell we avoid sensitive subjects as much as possible. Complaints in general are dealt with in the Complaint Area just for the sole purpose of explaining everything in detail, in about 90% of those cases the users' end up realizing that they were wrong or just didn't properly understand why they were muted or why certain rules were enforced the way they were.

Hey there everyone, the recent announcement was made by our GM Team, a team that functions as higher moderation who more often than not handle very severe infractions. The announcement had nothing to do with the ways they operate or anything, just simply with how they are enforcing the Punishment Policy. As Letrix wrote in his post ever since GMs and Devs cracked down on bots lesser cheat offenses became a rising problem. Our old Punishment Policy didn't reflect appropriate punishments for those offenses anymore therefore the change. If any of your guild members were banned by a GM you can be very certain they did something otherwise they wouldn't be banned. I said that in another of these suggestions posts about how we operate, simply we can not give away evidence as it would show how we operate (in GM cases at least), in other cases we can not give the evidence to protect the reporters. We will never involve the community in any of the appeal processes nor would we ever give evidence out publicly. Even within the staff team we don't have access to everything, Content Staff have no access to moderation whatsoever, CCs/Mods/Tmods have the same clearance while GMs ways of operation and evidence keeping is hidden from everyone else except Admins and Devs & then of course the highest level in the staff structure Admins/Devs. We simply will not make anything public or involve people who don't have to be informed of anything. From a personal experience as player and as staff, a lot of people just straight up lie to cover themselves. As sad as this sounds a lot of players lie in their appeals and to their guilds etc. If you want to be a good guild leader, lead them to being honest with themselves and being honest in their appeals. That's all we care about really, honesty. If you are banned then in most cases you did something wrong (investigations bans do happen from time to time). Kind regards, Q8

That's why I made the thread in the first place, if we were to do a player driven PvP council then everything had to be clear. I couldn't come up with a good solution on how to appoint the council members or how to select them in the first place. That's why I wanted to give the opportunity for others to voice their opinion. I totally agree you on the fact that we have to appoint the best, not friends or people we know. If we want this to work then we have to work together to find a good solution. As for rules and such, I already have a rough idea what council member rules were and that would include not abusing infomation from the council discussions (selling prior to decision making). What makes this harder than a PvP Council on smogon/showdown is the fact that this game isn't solely PvP, we have to take into consideration everything including the economy and the market. I brought up this example yesterday, changing Snivy to a Tier1 spawn would have a good impact on the metagame but realistically it goes the MMO aspect of the game.

That's why its a brainstorming thread and not alright dismiss stuff. If you had read through the other thread that you were so adamant in being open then you would have realized that this concern was brought up by someone. The second part of your comment was deleted, please don't repeat such thing. :)

Welcome :)

Welcome :)

Welcome back!

Welcome back :)

Welcome to PRO :)

Welcome back !:)