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[Chaosdawn]

7 hours ago, Confused Cat said:

The font size in the default theme still seems smaller than before. (Although I'm not 100% sure of it - maybe my eyesight is getting worse.)

Could it please be the same size as the Invision Blue theme?

 

I agree that the text is smaller, reading it is hurting my eyes now where it didn't yesterday. 

[HeatherMarie]

In the interest of science, I took a small bit of text from a forum-screenshot I took before the update, and a small bit of text from Confused Cat's post, and compared. Left is before update, right is after. I do agree the text *feels* smaller somehow, but it doesn't seem to physically be any smaller. (I'm on the default skin, nothing changed with browser between screenshots.)

 

             zoomed in:       

 

 

However!! When I zoom in even more, it seems the actual coloring of the pixels has changed? Look at this:

 

 

 

I'm not a coder and have no idea if that actually means anything, but I thought it interesting to point out.

[Ruby Eyes]

On 2/22/2021 at 10:26 AM, TJ09 said:

Seems like a change the software made in order to get people to click back into the forum. Perhaps there's an admin option to turn it off...

Can it please be turned off? It drives me crazy! They did this with private messages, too

[Ruby Eyes]

.

I also just noticed that the forum now automagically merges two posts into one when there is nothing else in between. Kind of a way to add to a post without editing, but also a bummer for everyone who wants to set up a project like, say, a Bingo game, and reserve a few posts for that.

 

There may be a time limit involved, though ... Seems 1 hour is long enough for a bump.

Are there any Release Notes one could look at?

[Sextonator]

So with this new update, and I don’t know if it effects others, but I noticed the navigation buttons to get from dragon requests or even suggestions to the previous page are gone on mobile. Does anyone else have this problem? I found the buttons really useful and it’s troublesome to have to go to an extra page to get to suggestions from dragon requests.

[dragongrrl]

2 hours ago, Sextonator said:

So with this new update, and I don’t know if it effects others, but I noticed the navigation buttons to get from dragon requests or even suggestions to the previous page are gone on mobile. Does anyone else have this problem? I found the buttons really useful and it’s troublesome to have to go to an extra page to get to suggestions from dragon requests.

It's the same problem I tried to describe a couple days ago and it's the same going from Trading or Breeding to Site Discussion. If there isn't the tab at the page bottom that says "go to topic listing," I am clicking the site logo to get where I want to go, and yes, it is frustrating. 

[DragonLady86]

Yes, it's so very annoying. 

[Nine]

Can mods leave news threads open for longer again? I noticed the sprite thread got locked in about 2 and a half days. Probably a lot of people like myself who log in sort of sporadically, and that's a super quick window to notice. It's a pretty major site change as well. Don't see the harm in letting people talk about things for around a week like normal release threads.

 

Also, can the name exclusivity thread get unlocked? It's this one-- it already fell off the first page! I think it's a pretty important feature to discuss the future of for DC, including possible implementation options.

 

If people getting into "flame wars" is cause for hesitancy, I'd suggest that the offending users get warns for reoffending behavior. Locking entire threads is pretty annoying for everyone else who is abiding by forum rules and wants to add in, but even worse: it puts a swift and merciless end to important discussions. For suggestion threads in particular, there is rarely any admin feedback and hashing out theoretics is all anyone can do to keep the idea of progress alive. If topics are getting so heated I really think mods should address the users and not act like the topic is at fault. Users who are causing a thread to be locked may not even be aware of it. Everyone's an adult here and mature discussions can absolutely be achieved for any variety of topic.

[purpledragonclaw]

2 hours ago, Nine said:

Can mods leave news threads open for longer again? I noticed the sprite thread got locked in about 2 and a half days. Probably a lot of people like myself who log in sort of sporadically, and that's a super quick window to notice. It's a pretty major site change as well. Don't see the harm in letting people talk about things for around a week like normal release threads.

 

Also, can the name exclusivity thread get unlocked? It's this one-- it already fell off the first page! I think it's a pretty important feature to discuss the future of for DC, including possible implementation options.

 

If people getting into "flame wars" is cause for hesitancy, I'd suggest that the offending users get warns for reoffending behavior. Locking entire threads is pretty annoying for everyone else who is abiding by forum rules and wants to add in, but even worse: it puts a swift and merciless end to important discussions. For suggestion threads in particular, there is rarely any admin feedback and hashing out theoretics is all anyone can do to keep the idea of progress alive. If topics are getting so heated I really think mods should address the users and not act like the topic is at fault. Users who are causing a thread to be locked may not even be aware of it. Everyone's an adult here and mature discussions can absolutely be achieved for any variety of topic.

 

We typically leave news threads open for awhile, at least a week after the update. We've tried to be better at giving members a chance to respond to things. Are you only bringing this up because of the sprite thread, which was closed more quickly than typical news threads? 

 

No, the Name Exclusivity thread will not be getting unlocked. Infinis, the OP, asked that it be locked down due to its repeated toxicity. Your suggestion is already implemented, when threads get very bad that suggestion doesn't work. We do address the users. The threads keep devolving. We lock threads to give users time to cool down. The threads keep devolving. We give thread warns to keep things respectful, address the topic, don't attack each other. The threads keep devolving. At that point we lock them down, it's the last resort. When threads reach this level there's no amount of constant modding that's going to keep things running smoothly, and topics like that should not be allowed to remain open, or be re-opened. The topic can be revisited, though, in a new thread, which has happened before.

 

ETA: I have at least another proposal to help with this: what if we pinned our verbal warnings to the top of threads, so members don't have to comb through fast-moving threads to see if we've left one? This way it would at least be visible to everyone.

Edited March 16, 2021 by purpledragonclaw

[Kaini]

2 hours ago, Nine said:

Can mods leave news threads open for longer again? I noticed the sprite thread got locked in about 2 and a half days. Probably a lot of people like myself who log in sort of sporadically, and that's a super quick window to notice. It's a pretty major site change as well. Don't see the harm in letting people talk about things for around a week like normal release threads.

 

The thread was locked after I gave a warning for things to remain civil - I said specifically if I had one more report that warranted action, I would close it permanently. well there was, and I did. The thread was given a warning prior.

 

This was its own incident. News threads are typically left open for longer provided they adhere to forum guidelines (most important being respect others.)

[Nine]

3 hours ago, purpledragonclaw said:

No, the Name Exclusivity thread will not be getting unlocked. Infinis, the OP, asked that it be locked down due to its repeated toxicity.

 

3 hours ago, purpledragonclaw said:

The topic can be revisited, though, in a new thread, which has happened before.

 

Is there protocol for amount of time necessary before posting a suggestion again? It feels incredibly redundant to just make a new thread right after, but if that's how it's done ok.

 

3 hours ago, purpledragonclaw said:

Your suggestion is already implemented, when threads get very bad that suggestion doesn't work. We do address the users. The threads keep devolving. We lock threads to give users time to cool down. The threads keep devolving. We give thread warns to keep things respectful, address the topic, don't attack each other. The threads keep devolving. At that point we lock them down, it's the last resort. When threads reach this level there's no amount of constant modding that's going to keep things running smoothly, and topics like that should not be allowed to remain open, or be re-opened.

 

If the same users keep it up, why not put them on restricted posting or whatever it is-- I am assuming that is still a moderation feature of the forums. Giving users time to cool down is probably a good temporary measure, but it doesn't change the people who are going to continue responding similarly. A locked thread doesn't hurt them in the slightest, they got their jabs in after all eh. Unfortunately people are going to need to be singled out if it truly is a small handful that continually exacerbates and ends threads. A broad topic warning and pinned post can be easily dismissed as "not referring to me". They might be dismissed too because something like "be respectful" has a lot of wiggling room of interpretation. Some sensitive souls would find cynical sarcasm a personal attack, and boy would I be in trouble if mods agreed.

 

Relatedly-- and this may be a rather in general issue on the DC forums-- but what constitutes toxicity anyways? I read both the name and sprite thread, I mostly just saw passive aggressive sniping. Some exasperation over misconstruing points, some sarcasm, people disliking a certain word, a lot of word emphasis which likely branches from frustration. Is any of that stuff disrespectful or toxicity? What exactly is the sort of thing that warrants action (outside of the blatantly obvious)? I genuinely don't believe I have a clue anymore, unless the offending posts are deleted and I just haven't seen them. I don't think topic warnings or pinned posts really do much either, the same people are going to do what they do until there are personal repercussions. And if what an actionable post entails isn't so obvious, I can't say I blame them. Maybe I too am guilty of "devolving" threads, I don't know.

 

Some clarity on what is unacceptable would probably do wonders and not just for the more heated topics. I see people asking in the "Name Check Thread" if words like bloody or tinder are okay, and that makes me think there is some confusion over acceptable language here that stretches from extreme to extreme.

 

I recall the silver sprite/gold revamp threads, the solstice wing change, bringing back the Frills, raffle prize dragon threads, trading post implementation threads, holiday exclusivity threads... all of those had their heated moments; would they have been prematurely ended by today's standards? I'd like to hope not, those were all pretty important for their time even if they weren't leisure reads. I don't want to think the forums have gotten even more sensitive from 10 years ago and require more constant hand-holding by mods, and I think there is a rational middle-ground to be found that won't require threads being warned/locked for ill behavior all the time. I can't deny I am confused over what specifically is causing the commotion and I really hope that can be clarified. I feel out of the loop.

[Ruby Eyes]

2 hours ago, Nine said:

Maybe I too am guilty of "devolving" threads, I don't know.

I think you would know, because receiving a mod warning disables you from doing anything on the forums (posting or messaging) until you acknowledge the warning.

(That can get really confusing if the post for which you received the warning is already half a week old and you may not even be thinking about it anymore, and you're smack in the middle of some gifting/trading/bouncing action but suddenly cannot continue with that)

 

[MissK.]

6 hours ago, Kaini said:

 

The thread was locked after I gave a warning for things to remain civil - I said specifically if I had one more report that warranted action, I would close it permanently. well there was, and I did. The thread was given a warning prior.

 

This was its own incident. News threads are typically left open for longer provided they adhere to forum guidelines (most important being respect others.)

 

Perhaps the explanation was the problem then. I was also surprised to see the sprite update thread locked, because your message made it sound like it was just locked since enough time went by. If the actual reason was that things escalated again, that did not come across, to me at least.

[camelia2]

6 hours ago, Kaini said:

 

The thread was locked after I gave a warning for things to remain civil - I said specifically if I had one more report that warranted action, I would close it permanently. well there was, and I did. The thread was given a warning prior.

 

This was its own incident. News threads are typically left open for longer provided they adhere to forum guidelines (most important being respect others.)

Since we can't never see what posts are reported, that wasn't a real warning.... we were suposed to guess when another troll will post?

Also why is allways 1 ruinning it for all? Isn't that what personal warnings are for? Eliminate the bad grapes and leave others alone?

(As was stated before, civil, respectfull and others alike, are SUBJECTIVE notions) 

From what I've seen around, threads get often closed for 'heated discussions' (hello, this is what a FORUM is for) when they exceed something like 3 posts/hour and have divergent opinions, even though there is no name calling or personal attacks, that it makes my blood boil that the decission to close a thread rests solely on ONE person's opinion of what is 'heated' or 'civil', be it a mod.

 

News thread should have a minimum 3day opening before closing for any reason. Weren't mods suposed to filter and delete abussive comments? They can just say 'nah, too much work today, I'll just close it' at any time?!

This doesn't sound fair at all, does it?

[Ruby Eyes]

8 hours ago, Nine said:

Can mods leave news threads open for longer again? I noticed the sprite thread got locked in about 2 and a half days. Probably a lot of people like myself who log in sort of sporadically, and that's a super quick window to notice. It's a pretty major site change as well. Don't see the harm in letting people talk about things for around a week like normal release threads.

At least on new sprites, there is a Discussion thread:

Time for another necro?

[Kaini]

4 hours ago, camelia2 said:

Since we can't never see what posts are reported, that wasn't a real warning.... we were suposed to guess when another troll will post?

Also why is allways 1 ruinning it for all? Isn't that what personal warnings are for? Eliminate the bad grapes and leave others alone?

(As was stated before, civil, respectfull and others alike, are SUBJECTIVE notions) 

From what I've seen around, threads get often closed for 'heated discussions' (hello, this is what a FORUM is for) when they exceed something like 3 posts/hour and have divergent opinions, even though there is no name calling or personal attacks, that it makes my blood boil that the decission to close a thread rests solely on ONE person's opinion of what is 'heated' or 'civil', be it a mod.

 

News thread should have a minimum 3day opening before closing for any reason. Weren't mods suposed to filter and delete abussive comments? They can just say 'nah, too much work today, I'll just close it' at any time?!

This doesn't sound fair at all, does it?

 

You're making a lot of assumptions here, and it's frankly a tad hurtful you would think so little of us.  

 

The moderation process is extremely collaborative. We have private places we discuss moderation actions, it's certainly not just 'one mod decides it's too much work and closes'. 

 

I did eliminate the bad grapes. A lot of them. Users cannot see hidden comments. I hid a lot, and redirected the discussion, and allowed the thread to continue with a pinned warning. It continued amicably for a little while, then devolved into more hurtful comments and general mud slinging and arguments between a few people so it was closed as it seemed the topic had worn itself out in the constructive category. 

 

There's not much to say, anyway. It was a news thread letting you know what took place. It had already happened. If you would like to discuss the validity of spite changes, a suggestions thread would be more apt. 

 

Opinionated discussions are one thing - attacking one another and belittling people who put hard work into this site on a volunteer basis is another. When a topic doesn't seem conducive to much else, it's simply closed. We have tried and tried to keep these things open, particularly with the name thread. 

 

Edit to say it is preferable you create a new one rather than necro posting. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Kaini

[Fuzzbucket]

4 hours ago, MissK. said:

 

Perhaps the explanation was the problem then. I was also surprised to see the sprite update thread locked, because your message made it sound like it was just locked since enough time went by. If the actual reason was that things escalated again, that did not come across, to me at least.

As one who reported some posts, it came over as pretty nasty to me, I have to say. And Kaini is right, below. The mods work their butts off.

 

6 minutes ago, Kaini said:

 

You're making a lot of assumptions here, and it's frankly a tad hurtful you would think so little of us.  

 

The moderation process is extremely collaborative. We have private places we discuss moderation actions, it's certainly not just 'one mod decides it's too much work and closes'. 

 

I did eliminate the bad grapes. A lot of them. Users cannot see hidden comments. I hid a lot, and redirected the discussion, and allowed the thread to continue with a pinned warning. It continued amicably for a little while, then devolved into more hurtful comments and general mud slinging and arguments between a few people so it was closed as it seemed the topic had worn itself out in the constructive category. 

 

There's not much to say, anyway. It was a news thread letting you know what took place. It had already happened. If you would like to discuss the validity of spite changes, a suggestions thread would be more apt. 

 

Opinionated discussions are one thing - attacking one another and belittling people who put hard work into this site on a volunteer basis is another. When a topic doesn't seem conducive to much else, it's simply closed. We have tried and tried to keep these things open, particularly with the name thread. 

 

Edit to say it is preferable you create a new one rather than necro posting. 

 

I have to say I think any such thread will get just as bad - good luck.

[Kaini]

6 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I have to say I think any such thread will get just as bad - good luck.

 

There should still be the opportunity to discuss it. It WOULD be unfair to disallow the topic entirely. But yes. 

[MissK.]

14 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

As one who reported some posts, it came over as pretty nasty to me, I have to say. And Kaini is right, below. The mods work their butts off.

 

Not sure if you meant to quote me for that one - I said nothing about whether the thread was toxic or not, or disagreeing with Kaini in general. I was refering to the message with which the thread was permanently locked, as it didn't mention anyting about the actual reason for locking.

 

I see there was an edit to that post though so it is way more clear now.

[Fuzzbucket]

No I meant that within the thread, it did get very nasty, over and over again - and you had said:

 

5 hours ago, MissK. said:

If the actual reason was that things escalated again, that did not come across, to me at least.

 

Well - Kaini's right., They did.

[MissK.]

@Fuzzbucket I think I wasn't entirely clear then, I meant the reason the thread was locked did not come across in Kaini's post in it. I was not making a statement on whether I thought the thread escalated. But Kaini already edited the post accordingly, so for me at least that is clear now.

[Fuzzbucket]

 No worries. Just so long as those who weren't watching know that it DID escalate - repeatedly.

[Chaosdawn]

7 hours ago, Kaini said:

Opinionated discussions are one thing - attacking one another and belittling people who put hard work into this site on a volunteer basis is another. 

 

This, so much this. I hate seeing people who have put hard work into this site insulted. 

 

I was a forum mod on another site and I know how it can be. Kaini, you and the other mods do a great job, I appreciate all that you do. 

[RainDear]

I want to thank the mods for the great job they do. Even though some topics get really out of hand, they are so much on top of things that most of us never know just how bad things have gotten. Busy topics can move very quickly and be hard to keep up with. I am greatly appreciative of the work they do.

[purpledragonclaw]

20 hours ago, Nine said:

If the same users keep it up, why not put them on restricted posting or whatever it is-- I am assuming that is still a moderation feature of the forums. Giving users time to cool down is probably a good temporary measure, but it doesn't change the people who are going to continue responding similarly. A locked thread doesn't hurt them in the slightest, they got their jabs in after all eh. Unfortunately people are going to need to be singled out if it truly is a small handful that continually exacerbates and ends threads. A broad topic warning and pinned post can be easily dismissed as "not referring to me". They might be dismissed too because something like "be respectful" has a lot of wiggling room of interpretation. Some sensitive souls would find cynical sarcasm a personal attack, and boy would I be in trouble if mods agreed.

 

Relatedly-- and this may be a rather in general issue on the DC forums-- but what constitutes toxicity anyways? I read both the name and sprite thread, I mostly just saw passive aggressive sniping. Some exasperation over misconstruing points, some sarcasm, people disliking a certain word, a lot of word emphasis which likely branches from frustration. Is any of that stuff disrespectful or toxicity? What exactly is the sort of thing that warrants action (outside of the blatantly obvious)? I genuinely don't believe I have a clue anymore, unless the offending posts are deleted and I just haven't seen them. I don't think topic warnings or pinned posts really do much either, the same people are going to do what they do until there are personal repercussions. And if what an actionable post entails isn't so obvious, I can't say I blame them. Maybe I too am guilty of "devolving" threads, I don't know.

 

1. We do use posting moderation. 

2. Toxicity is name-calling, rudeness, and personal attacks. We don't treat dryness, cynicism, or sarcasm as a lack of respect. You mostly just saw passive-aggressive posts because we hid the inflammatory posts from view so they can't be commented on further. So yes, most likely you haven't seen them, what you see left in the thread was deemed acceptable to remain there.

 

16 hours ago, camelia2 said:

Since we can't never see what posts are reported, that wasn't a real warning.... we were suposed to guess when another troll will post?

Also why is allways 1 ruinning it for all? Isn't that what personal warnings are for? Eliminate the bad grapes and leave others alone?

(As was stated before, civil, respectfull and others alike, are SUBJECTIVE notions) 

From what I've seen around, threads get often closed for 'heated discussions' (hello, this is what a FORUM is for) when they exceed something like 3 posts/hour and have divergent opinions, even though there is no name calling or personal attacks, that it makes my blood boil that the decission to close a thread rests solely on ONE person's opinion of what is 'heated' or 'civil', be it a mod.

 

News thread should have a minimum 3day opening before closing for any reason. Weren't mods suposed to filter and delete abussive comments? They can just say 'nah, too much work today, I'll just close it' at any time?!

This doesn't sound fair at all, does it?

 

Not everyone who breaks the rules are trolls, and it's very presumptuous to assume that. It's also rarely just one person ruining it for everyone, in fact I can't think of an instance in recent DC history where one person caused a thread to be permanently locked. It's multiple users, multiple instances of misbehavior, that ruin it for everyone. The bad grapes are eliminated, others take their place. 

 

Forums are for discussions, but these threads aren't being closed for mere discussions. They're being closed because we get lots of reports to deal with the content of some of these threads, and I mean more than a few members reporting the same number of posts. 

 

I don't want to impose a minimum amount of time to leave any thread open before closing it, what determines that? Everyone's on a different schedule, why 3 days, why not 7? Why not 2? Threads tend to taper off on their own, that's a system that works, and please remember that the sprite thread was an anomaly. News threads are usually left open for much longer. Lastly, we do filter and delete abusive comments. Sometimes there's so much abuse entire pages have to be deleted. We never just say "another mod can deal with this" or "I'll just close this rather than moderate it". 

 

Now that two mods have responded to your post here I hope you have a better understanding of how we handle things. Trust me, it's not a power trip or an issue of laziness.

 

______

 

Okay, @Nine, moderators discussed it and since I left my closing post fairly open-ended and it is an important topic, I'm going to go ahead and re-open the Name Exclusivity thread with the caveat that we can't guarantee it will remain open. We'll give re-opening threads a try rather than create a new topic for it with this one, I hope it works.

Edited March 17, 2021 by purpledragonclaw