Roll20 dev hoisted by his own petard

[Dakkaface]

So, this blew up yesterday.

A user on reddit, one /u/ApostleO, made this post on r/DnD documenting his abysmal experience with Roll20's subreddit and their customer service, since their sub is run by the Roll20 devs.



It blew up fast. A few hours into it /u/NolanT, the dev who gave him the ban, refused his appeal, and is a co-founder of the company, went on to throw some gasoline on the fire with this non-apology:



As it stands, less than 24 hours since it went up, the initial post has 45 thousand upvotes and NolanT's 'I did nothing wrong' statement has 36k downvotes. The original post has been shared on 20 other subs and made it to the frontpage of reddit, r/all, where even non-roleplayers would see it. Plenty of folks have said they're unsubscribing and deleting their Roll20 accounts. There are multiple threads on the rpg and DnD subreddits asking about alternatives, and one content creator is offering offline copies of the Roll20 assets they created to anyone who bought them and deleted their account.

This isn't quite as big as the Paul Cristoforo debacle or EA's 'sense of pride and accomplishment' snafu, but damn if it isn't fairly large for the more niche community of roleplayers.

EDIT: The Roll20 subreddit has changed it's top banner to a dumpster fire, dumped every mod but one, replaced them with mods from r/lfg, and then the final remaining mod stepped down. Post on Roll20 about it.

 

[Lexica]

Unpopular opinion, but this whole thing is ridiculously overblown.

Was it an example of bad moderation? Sure. Did the Roll20 devs use their moderation powers to tamp down on criticism? I'm willing to entertain the idea, definitely.

But also, it wasn't like the guy's Roll20 account was being effected, just his access to a subreddit that by his own admission he didn't frequent often.

I sympathize to some extent with him, but the uproar around the incident is totally out of proportion with what actually happened.

 

[universalperson]

Unpopular opinion, but this whole thing is ridiculously overblown.

Was it an example of bad moderation? Sure. Did the Roll20 devs use their moderation powers to tamp down on criticism? I'm willing to entertain the idea, definitely.

But also, it wasn't like the guy's Roll20 account was being effected, just his access to a subreddit that by his own admission he didn't frequent often.

I sympathize to some extent with him, but the uproar around the incident is totally out of proportion with what actually happened.

Click to shrink...

The mod (who is also the co-creator of Roll20) shot himself in the foot.

I mean, they banned the guy because his name looked like another banned user.

And then kept him banned because he raised "too much" of a fuss. It's like being pronounced guilty because you made multiple appeals, when you had every right to do so.

And the mod response was basically "look I'm still keeping him banned because he escalated". He had every fucking right to escalate.

Quite honestly, I think if every customer service faux pas got this level of reaction...we'd see a lot less of these faux pas.

 

[Kaiya]

Unpopular opinion, but this whole thing is ridiculously overblown.

Was it an example of bad moderation? Sure. Did the Roll20 devs use their moderation powers to tamp down on criticism? I'm willing to entertain the idea, definitely.

But also, it wasn't like the guy's Roll20 account was being effected, just his access to a subreddit that by his own admission he didn't frequent often.

I sympathize to some extent with him, but the uproar around the incident is totally out of proportion with what actually happened.

Click to shrink...

Nah, it's pretty 1-to-1 proportionate. "Don't shit on your customers" should be industry standard policy, rather than "Shit on your customers until shit reaches a critical mass and explodes". More cases like this need to happen, not less. The default shouldn't be "Meh, fuck 'em, it's convenient to us so they can eat it". If this sort of thing wasn't so standard, proportional considerations would be reasonable, but as is? It's like a thousand minor offenses all piled up. The maximum acceptable response (Cancel the account, spread the word) is pretty justified, because it's the knowledge that "it's not a big deal" that makes folks like nolanT and this Miles jerk feel comfortable shitting on paying customers.

 

[Hykal94]

The creator or Roll20 coulda just go "yeah we fucked up bad sorry" but doubled down, hid behind his staff, and never even apologised. Not once. Not to some new person but to a long paying loyal customer to boot.

ApostleO had every right to be angry, had every right to make that post. They utterly deserve the shitstorm they got.

 

[Lexica]

Hmm. I don't know. I'm willing to re-evaluate my opinion I guess. Like, I absolutely agree that the way the Roll20 people handled this was dumb, but the scale of the response to it is just so immense that it feels inherently... Again, out of proportion to the harm done.

I guess my hackles are probably a bit raised because I'm generally a fan of Roll20, which is probably biasing my response. Eh.

 

[Kaiya]

Hmm. I don't know. I'm willing to re-evaluate my opinion I guess. Like, I absolutely agree that the way the Roll20 people handled this was dumb, but the scale of the response to it is just so immense that it feels inherently... Again, out of proportion to the harm done.

I guess my hackles are probably a bit raised because I'm generally a fan of Roll20, which is probably biasing my response. Eh.

Click to shrink...

It seems out of proportion because their uncaring response angered a lot of people, is my guess? They insulted one person, and lost hundreds or thousands of customers and angered tens of thousands of people. The thing is, though, when you act in a hurtful or belittling manner towards people who trust you, the harm doesn't divide by the number of people who see it. It multiplies. Every new person who sees how ApostileO gets treated is a new person angry and hurt and demanding answers, and is a new person who gets to make the decision of whether or not Roll20 gets their business. When one's business is heavily based in the promise that you will treat people giving you money fairly, and you are seen, even once, treating someone unfairly, that's a lot of damage done all at once, because it's not one person that got hurt. It's every single person who reads the story and realizes "Oh, shit, that means I might be next."

 

[Enmascarado]

Honestly, this feels like an exaggeration for me too, but more like, it seems really weird for the community to explode for this, it feels more like there were some problems before and this was simply the last straw, you know?

 

[Dakkaface]

Unpopular opinion, but this whole thing is ridiculously overblown.

Was it an example of bad moderation? Sure. Did the Roll20 devs use their moderation powers to tamp down on criticism? I'm willing to entertain the idea, definitely.

But also, it wasn't like the guy's Roll20 account was being effected, just his access to a subreddit that by his own admission he didn't frequent often.

I sympathize to some extent with him, but the uproar around the incident is totally out of proportion with what actually happened.

Click to shrink...

Well, while I don't agree with the brigade that decided to shitpost all over the Roll20 sub, ApostleO is 100% in the right for this. Sure, he was only minorly inconvenienced. But it was still an abuse of mod power, and when he tried to appeal he was completely blown off. The handling of what was an extremely minor issue was bungled from start to finish, and it doesn't bode well for how they'd handle an actual issue. I mean, lets recap the list of mistakes made here:

1. Roll20 devs running the sub. Reddit guidelines state the owners of a property/product/whatever shouldn't be running the sub for that thing, with good reason. Reddit is not meant to be an extension or replacement for official forums.
   
2. Banning users critical of the program or the devs. Suppressing criticism of your product is prone to backfire in the first place - Streisand effect.
   
3. When someone appears who is critical of the product and barely has any other posts yet, banning for ban evasion without checking with Reddit to see if it IS ban evasion or just a similar username. Mod abuse now extending to ANY critic of the product, even ones who have barely interacted with them. Failing to do a bare minimum of due diligence.
   
4. When said banned user tries to appeal, it is dismissed out of hand. Poor user interaction.
   
5. When said banned user points out that they are not ban evading, and have been a paying customer for a half decade, and they'd like to get this resolved, they are ignored. At the very least, tell them 'we will investigate further' instead of giving them radio silence.
   
6. When said banned user now sends an appeal via the official support email and Twitter about the their appeal, and now says they will cancel their account and tell as many people as they can about the way they are being treated, they tell them that after checking the IP, they aren't ban evading, but because they sent a message, an email, and a tweet the ban is going to stay in place. This is the point where one should apologize for errors made and offer some form of compensation. Instead, they basically make a mockery of the appeal system - if you actually want to appeal your ban, clearly there is something fishy about you, and the ban will be upheld.
   
7. The banned user follows through with their ultimatum and unsubs, deletes their account, and shares their shitty customer service experience. Tons of people are incredulous at the blowoff and the subreddit is blowing up with indignant users and trolls posting salty memes. They still don't unban anyone. Instead the same admin who handled the ban makes a wordy, rambling post in which they smear both BannedUser1 and Banned User2, imply that criticism of a product is imperiling their livelihoods, and do not apologize once. This isn't a legally liable situation. There's no reason to double down and cover your ass instead of just issuing a mea culpa and announcing that u/NolanT is now off the mod and customer service team, since he's clearly inept at it and should stick to coding. Tens of thousands of people are now watching the unfolding drama and trying to paint the loyal customer falsely banned as some kind of entitled bad actor only makes you look even shadier in their eyes at this point. Someone who has been a paying customer for years is treated this way. A potential, or current user can reasonably assume that they will be treated similarly. This is pouring gasoline on the fire.
8. Even the unbanning and mod replacement was done from behind an anonymized 'roll20admin' handle, with an extremely weak 'we're sorry we let the community down' apology, with no mention of what exactly they are apologizing for.

The trashing of their subreddit was undeserved, and likely the product of indignant rage on the part of readers unaffiliated with their product. The people unsubbing? Deleting their accounts? Choosing another VTT in the first place? That's pretty much entirely on their heads. CS is not an easy thing to do, but basic mistakes at every stage don't paint a good picture for other people interacting with them, and they were flat out told that this guy would make his experience known on all his social media. The scale of the initial problem was small, but the handling of it was a colossal fuckup that sends the message to every potential user that their criticisms will not be welcome, their appeals will not be heard, and the devs will admit no wrongdoing. It's not a pretty picture, but it is one largely of their own making.

 

[Old Guard]

Honestly, this feels like an exaggeration for me too, but more like, it seems really weird for the community to explode for this, it feels more like there were some problems before and this was simply the last straw, you know?

Click to shrink...

There have been many issues, hell the "Paid GM" thing that the actually banned guy got in trouble for has been a fairly significant issue the past year or so.

Plus the fact that they do similar stuff at there own forums, as they did on Reddit. Where they screwed up was trying to pull the same stuff on a larger platform that they have less control over.

 

[Kaiya]

There have been many issues, hell the "Paid GM" thing that the actually banned guy got in trouble for has been a fairly significant issue the past year or so.

Plus the fact that they do similar stuff at there own forums, as they did on Reddit. Where they screwed up was trying to pull the same stuff on a larger platform that they have less control over.

Click to shrink...

Wait why is paid DMing a problem?

 

[Old Guard]

Wait why is paid DMing a problem?

Click to shrink...

Personally I've no idea, I actually rather like the idea. A lot of work goes into preparing, and running a campaign, so much so, that it could be considered a full time job in some cases. I think the majority of the complaints were directed at the criteria for who could become a Paid GM (basically, who decided who gets to be on the list).

I dropped my paid account last year, because I got tired of certain members of the Roll20 community who I would describe as "Toxic" so I left just as that stuff was getting into full swing.

 

[DestinyPlayer]

Always preferred Maptools by RPTools myself anyway.

 

[Dakkaface]

Wait why is paid DMing a problem?

Click to shrink...

Grain of salt, but this is all speculation or regurgitated from what I looked into briefly - I don't use Roll20.

For starters, there is no way to publicly rate a GM, get a refund, or know anything about them. Playing in a paid-GM game over Roll20 is essentially doing a transaction over eBay. When you fork over that money, there's no way to know whether you're getting the product your ordered, a damaged version of the product you ordered, or a brick in a box. Except when you're on eBay, there's a system for rating transactions and a conflict resolution system for dealing with scammers. Roll20 offers no such options, despite being a platform that allows GM's to charge for services on it.

There were apparently other problems, like Paid GM's spamming game listings that only contained a 'I will charge you for this' in the full description, clogging up the ability of people to actually LFG, and a fair amount of paid GM's charging pretty ridiculous rates for their services, like $30 a head per session.

 

[foamy]

The further I got into that screed in the OP the less I believed it. That behaviour is identical to what happens when people lie to us about having sockpuppets on SV.

 

[Squishy]

The further I got into that screed in the OP the less I believed it. That behaviour is identical to what happens when people lie to us about having sockpuppets on SV.

Click to shrink...

Tbh, this entire situation strikes me as a pretty clear demonstration of why social media incentivizes PR/moderation/community management systems that are opaque and unaccountable.

If the guy had been banned silently and without explanation, the situation would almost certainly have blown over.

The more you talk, the more you try to explain, the more people hate.

 

[OneirosTheWriter]

The further I got into that screed in the OP the less I believed it. That behaviour is identical to what happens when people lie to us about having sockpuppets on SV.

Click to shrink...

"And an apology from the moderator!!!!!!!!"

 

[asdx]

Tbh, this entire situation strikes me as a pretty clear demonstration of why social media incentivizes PR/moderation/community management systems that are opaque and unaccountable.

If the guy had been banned silently and without explanation, the situation would almost certainly have blown over.

The more you talk, the more you try to explain, the more people hate.

Click to shrink...

The more you try and justify how you're in the right, when you're in the wrong. The more people see you as a giant ass.

 

[stratigo]

Tbh, this entire situation strikes me as a pretty clear demonstration of why social media incentivizes PR/moderation/community management systems that are opaque and unaccountable.

If the guy had been banned silently and without explanation, the situation would almost certainly have blown over.

The more you talk, the more you try to explain, the more people hate.

Click to shrink...

I will wage a one person shitposting war to drag back moderation back into the light if I must!

Seriously though, one of the things I appreciate about SV is that its moderation is less opaque and arbitrary. Maybe the thing I appreciate.