So in the game Kirby: Star Allies, there is a widely supported idea for a subcategory for a category to be added, and nobody but the active mod (the other two are not active on the forums) have rejected it, all comments being supportive for the idea, except the active mod’s. Today I made a poll on if people think the idea should be added, and made a post with the link, but the mod said “No, I’m not adding it”, and locked the post. The mod has also rejected another widely supported idea, a Demo% category. The mod is very good otherwise, and quickly verified runs. Is this considered mod abuse, and if so, is it worth reporting, if so, where do you report it?
I'd need to see a strawpoll with more than 5 votes before I'm convinced that it is widely supported but beyond that, if the moderator isn't acting upon what the community of the game agrees on then they aren't doing very good moderation, as the guide on moderation puts it “You are a representative of the community, not the ruler.”.
It's definitely a problem. Moderators aren't supposed to be in charge of the community and shutting down discussion of ideas that they don't like, they're supposed to be representatives of the community. If the community is indeed strongly in favour of doing something, the moderator definitely should implement it.
As for how to deal with this problem, I'd try asking the moderator why they're refusing to implement the subcategory, and if they continue being unreasonable then I'd just say to make a post in the leaderboard moderation request thread to have them removed. https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/63nr7
Edit: All that said, before doing that you should definitely make sure that there is actually community consensus on this. As @Twan_Jones brought up, the strawpoll you made is far from conclusive for a game with 43 active players.
Yeah, that's the thing Twan_Jones, I made a strawpoll and when I posted it, the moderator locked the thread, and I read the guide, that's how I know that it is wrong. Here is the link to the thread I made that was locked: https://www.speedrun.com/ksa/thread/66tvb Here is the link to the Leaderboard Change thread where you can see that there is widespread support for the subcategory: https://www.speedrun.com/ksa/thread/dnjnl
ShikenNuggets, the issue with them being removed is that they are by far the most active mod, so if they were removed, everything would move much slower, and the other two mods would most likely not even know about the requests. As for the reason, though, with the Subcategory mentioned, they said that it would not attract runners, but distract from another category. While this is valid reasoning, everyone else who has put in an opinion has agreed that it should become a category. For the Demo%, it was strange because someone requested it, and the mod said that the idea was good and they'd add it. A little talk about it went on, and a couple days after, the mod just said that they would not add it and locked the thread. Here is the link to the thread: https://www.speedrun.com/ksa/thread/op293
I'll request for the mod to be demoted to verifier, because verification-wise they are amazing, and I will request to become a mod (has absolutely nothing to do with my complaint about the mod, but I think I am a good option because I have multiple runs in the game and am one of the most active community members) so that I can fully consult the community about the categories, if you think that this is the best course of action. If not, please give me a suggestion.
"the issue with them being removed is that they are by far the most active mod, so if they were removed, everything would move much slower"
If that's an issue then appoint new mods.
"I'll request for the mod to be demoted to verifier"
That works too.
Yeah, I'll wait a bit to see if I can get any more votes, but if not or they are all pro category creation and the mod still rejects the idea then I'll do the aforementioned actions. Thanks.
@B31JS you should join the discord to talk about this where it's a bit more active https://discord.gg/XdXCaK9
I don't have discord and don't really want to get it, and I've decided to wait a little bit to see what happens, but thanks for the suggestion!
Also, if you ever want to be a mod, add social media accs to your profile! Users need to be able to contact you, forums arent always the way to go
^ You're missing out on a lot of valuable discussions in the discord that you won't really see in the forums too if you're invested in anything to do with speedrunning kirby. It is your choice but I highly recommend you get a discord account
Yep discord has private messaging, although I think you have to either send the person a friend request or be in a discord server together to be able to do that