Originally Posted by
nvrspk4
Hey,
Let me start by backtracking and withdrawing the majority of my previous post. What I meant to say was in there...somewhere...but I said it badly. I had to think on it for a few minutes to be able to actually classify it. So let me take a second shot at this:
The Complaints forum is different from feedback in two ways:
1) It can be used for individual issues/question that don't pertain to the greater forum
2) It is used to question situations where policy is violated, but NOT when policy should be changed.
When people are lobbying for policy to be changed then obviously the Feedback forum is the right place to do so. One caveat I should make is that members can choose to post appeals to change policy in Complaints if they want to speak directly to General Management and only are really seeking a reply from General Management. If they do so, that is their choice and there are very few situations where it would not be permitted.
[Those with TL : DR Syndrome can read up to here. Below are justifications/further explanations for the above]
Now, why do you need the Complaints forum (in the format of only thread starter and management can reply) for reasons 1 and 2?
1) Individual Question - A user may have a question for, or need something done by the management team but may not know who to go to or any member of General Management could deal with their issue, so they post in this forum, because other users' replies would only be able to direct them where to get help, instead of being able to give help (admittedly the "Password" thread does not fit this, it was posted in the wrong forum as Hecktix noted, but it require a one sentence response which took as much effort as moving it, so no harm IMO).
2) Policy Question - This is when a user is questioning the interpretation of a specific policy or the enforcement of a specific policy. IE: "You are not following policy A" or "You should be doing this according to policy A". Now it won't always be said like that but in essence most of the threads conform to this or one (proof comes later, don't worry.) The reason that only GM replies to this is mainly because only the General Management response matters. What??? The users don't count??? Blasphemy, dictatorship, overthrow the tyrants!!!! No, it's just that when a policy isn't being followed, that should just be pointed out to management and dealt with. Having users throw in their two cents is often more destructive than constructive as threads get derailed. If users have additional instances of not following policy A to report, they can PM the thread starter or create their own, but the system has more benefits than detriments.
The second reason only General Management should reply is if it's a policy interpretation (ie: "Policy A says you shouldn't be doing this", or "Under policy A isn't this disallowed?") is because only the General Management's interpretation of the policy is relevant, because what GM interprets the policy to be is what the policy is being enforced as. Now, if you disagree with that, you can take it to the Feedback Forum where you can now work on a policy change. Isn't this a roundabout way, requiring two threads in two different forums when we could just delete complaints and use Feedback? No, because the ability to clarify what the current policy is allows the debate to be much more focused and prevents multiple pages of inflammatory posts/misinformed hypotheses to confuse the issue. If the policy is confirmed in complaints, then you can move forward in Feedback, whereas otherwise there might be 5-6 pages of misinformed posts before General Management can get their point clear about the current policy, at which time discussion will shift and it's just plain confusing.
Now, to ensure that I wasn't just babbling as I did a little bit before, I did some checking to back up my hypothesis, and picked the following random pages to browse the threads of pages: 1, 11, 13, 17, 21, 24
The vast majority were individual issues, questions of policy, complaints that policy wasn't being followed (contesting ban reasons, reporting misconduct, complaining that things weren't being done fast enough [I consider this an issue of policy not being followed as it is a policy to be prompt as possible], etc.)
So those are the two main purposes the Complaints Forum serves apart from the Feedback forum, in addition to Feedback where the member only wants to hear from General Management (in which case if you know how to post Feedback you could get a concurrent thread going about changing it here). I've also provided the reasons why I think that they need to be separate from the Feedback forum, in a forum where only General Management can post.
Hopefully this makes a lot more sense than the last post :P
Also as a disclaimer, I said that the discussion of whether we should CHANGE the policy should go to feedback. I will acknowledge that sometimes the thread evolves from questioning the policy to demanding change in the policy, but it started with questioning the policy. I do however think it would be sensible for General Management to say (once they have clarified the policy) "That's what the policy is. If you want it to be changed, feel free to make a post in the Feedback Forum". I think for the most part the divide is being kept, though.
Second disclaimer, I understand Gomme's rhetorical point about the naming of the complaints forum, we can be technical about what each post is, technically a query etc. That said, I could also argue that a question about where someone's VIP is is implicitly a complaint, even if it's explicitly a query. My suggestion here would be to not worry about the semantics unless they were legitimately confusing to a majority of members. In this case, I believe the point of Complaints is sufficiently clear that a renaming isn't that necessary.
