Post by malaika in NSFW Deindexing/Bans - itch.io

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malaika60 days ago (4 edits) (+3)

I'm honestly not sure. I have friends who were deindexed then reindexed, but I also know completely SFW work that has been deindexed too for unknown reasons since staff isn't responding to tickets anymore. It confuses me because they have been responsive in the past to moderation issues, but now, it is complete silence.

I was told specifically here by the forum moderator here (No Time to Play) that my game was left deindexed by staff on purpose, but I tried to compare my page to pages that were reindexed and saw nothing that would've alerted staff. I was also told this issue was raised to admins but that was a while ago now.

I don't know any deindexed dev who has successfully contacted support about this issue. The closest I've seen is Leafo clear up random misconceptions in the forums- I've never seen him actually talk to a dev that is actually affected.

Also regarding your theory- I've seen older games with regular high amounts of activity get deindexed after updating and my own game was deindexed while receiving a decent amount of activity too (And I updated it once). It really seems like staff is just firing shots in the dark.

S3 Digital60 days ago(+1)

Oh so the lack of support is new. That's important to know. I only joined Itch a year ago and I never had to use support until this thing, so it's good to hear this isn't the norm.

Given that this is a legal issue, I can understand the staff and owner shutting up to avoid complicating things.

malaika60 days ago(+2)

Yes I've been in contact with support regarding improper moderation in the past and had a nice dialogue with them. They also have to respond to other tickets (ie if you want CSS, you have to contact support).

I'm unsure if they're not responding to Any tickets right now or just those related to NSFW deindexing though. Leafos talks like they are responding in the forums (you can sometimes see him responding to people), but I honestly don't know if that means anything..

S3 Digital60 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

The fact he made the thread for the NSFW discussion hidden to me says that they're not actually replying to people who comment there. Because if they were, it would make more sense to have it public so people can see what was already asked. I mean we all basically have the exact same questions, so it's not like there is any confidential difference between us.

To a degree, I can understand doing that. Whenever you get involved in potential litigation the first thing your lawyer will tell you is to delete all your online content and stop talking to people about anything related to your case.

Having a hidden forum helps to concentrate any discussion about it into a quarantined area in hopes of preventing further discussion about it.

A Fals Fiction60 days ago(+1)

I’ve noticed your indexed games have tags but “what is it like to taste” doesn’t. Maybe tags would help in your case? It’s a wild guess.

I’ve seen older games with regular high amounts of activity get deindexed after updating and my own game was deindexed while receiving a decent amount of activity too (And I updated it once).

Optimistic question: Was that at the same time of the mass deindexing or was it after projects starting being reindexed?

I don’t know any deindexed dev who has successfully contacted support about this issue.

Yeah, I’m the only one I can think of, and I’m not primarily a game developer.

malaika60 days ago (1 edit) (+2)

I removed that tags for What Is It Like to Taste to see if one was possibly flagging it for Itchio, but it did not do anything unfortunately. I kept them off due to WIILTT not being discoverable right now anyways.

Regarding the dates, my project was deindexed July 28th- this was a few days after many of my peers had been deindexed. I know this because I wrote a dev log talking about it, only for my project to be deindexed 2 days after I wrote the log. I edited by my page right before it was deindexed, but I've had friends edit their pages for NSFW pages without being deindexed so I'm unsure of what I did to make Itchio staff decide not to reindex it.

Many peers got indexed again, so I sent a ticket August 2nd, a few follow ups, made a topic here, and I've still heard nothing. The only response I got was in this thread 50 days ago and well, there's been nothing since then. I've gotten no explanation or anything which is disheartening. I know Itchio is dealing with a very large bot problem, but it has been a very long time without any sort of explanation or solution from staff for developers who don't know why they are deindexed..

Hawkpelt60 days ago(+1)

Not a dev myself, but a friend of one. It took me a lot of hounding on my friend's behalf to get a direct response from leafo, who provided a rationale based on the "intent" of the page. I wouldn't be surprised if this is legal safeguarding like others have proposed, but either way you have to be really persistent to get any kind of response, and it doesn't make things any less frustrating in the meantime.

malaika60 days ago

Thank you for telling me this! It really confuses me still because 'intent' of pages isn't outlined in any of the rules. I've also been unsure of the best way to even try to contact staff since I'm not sure they are even reading tickets. While I know No Time to Play has reached out to Leafos directly before, I am unsure of the best way to do that myself also haha since he seems to respond to things based on whether or not he has an easy to understand answer.