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[KageSora]

1 hour ago, purpledragonclaw said:

 

Oh drat, you're right! I won't step on her toes, but I'd be happy to help @SkyWolf25 if you'd like!

 

Thank you Kage, totally forgot.

 

You're welcome!  I figured just wanted to mention so you two didn't accidentally double up on work or something by mistake!

[Su_Halcon]

wow so many pages already, I guess what I want to say has already been mentioned, but nevertheless: I would love an easier way to implement pictures, which is somehow complicated here especially when you want to change something. I think BBCode all over would be the best solution, also for the other features it gives.

[Fuzzbucket]

10 hours ago, _Charky said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm of the opinion that ALL of the rules on ALL areas of the site need to be updated - I don't think that "we can't cover all eventualities" is a good excuse not to state some things which are established rules (such as "don't talk about other users because they might see it and get sad") - but in this particular instance the rules very much do cover chat topics beind disallowed.

 

10 hours ago, Kaini said:

This definitely falls under 'respect others'. Anything that needs to be said behind someone's back that might make them 'sad'.  Respect others just applies whether or not they're on the forum. 

 

9 hours ago, _Charky said:

... I'm not entirely sure where going behind people's backs comes into this, but that's probably off topic.

 

I think if this thread has proven anything, it's that the "makes me sad" threshold is very subjective. One person's nonpartisan/objective/blunt/measurable fact or gentle correction can be another person's personal attack. You can't cover all of those circumstances, but you can look to definite the difference between situations which are "disrespect" and which are "it is up to us to moderate our own feelings" (Kaini, 2023).

 

To this I would add - consider how you would speak to the other person if you were in the room with them. The people we respond to here have feelings just as each of us does. If you want to  address something said by another player, you don't do it by talking ABOUT them, you speak TO them. If I say (picking on a mod as I am trying to make a point, and I hope they will take it as such !) "@purpledragonclaw was SO rude, I don't like them, anyone else ?" - that is not OK. If I say "Hang on, @purpledragonclaw, I thought that was a bit rude" they have the chance to reply. If I say " @purpledragonclaw that WAS rude" that strays into opinion on my part, and is perhaps less acceptable. If I were seriously upset, I would do better to contact them by PM; if I want to BE rude about them to a friend, that is DEFINITELY PM material.

 

Also as my neurodivergent relative said recently, when someone accidentally misgendered his pronouns - if it's done by accident and with no ill-will, let it go. Save your fight for when people are deliberately trying to offend.

 

2 hours ago, Su_Halcon said:

wow so many pages already, I guess what I want to say has already been mentioned, but nevertheless: I would love an easier way to implement pictures, which is somehow complicated here especially when you want to change something. I think BBCode all over would be the best solution, also for the other features it gives.

 

That's down to invision, who don't permit it - so TJ can't change it. But the picture icon on the edit bar is pretty self-explanatory. And as a BBcode fan myself - I have actually found it pretty easy to cope. There's a great thread about all this. 

 

[_Charky]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

To this I would add - consider how you would speak to the other person if you were in the room with them.

I still don't think this works as a moderating rule. How I would speak to someone face-to face is very different than how you would, or how purpledragonclaw or kaini would- but the latter two of those are the only methods of face-to-face-speak which are used as a benchmark. if something is going to be used as a benchmark, it needs to be laid out clearly. If one mod thinks it's rude to say "it's really annoying when people breed a wall of celestials to the AP" in a group discussion, and another mod thinks that's a fair statement, whose judgement do we use? Should punishement vary depending who's online at the time?

[Fuzzbucket]

Too many people seem to think it is OK to treat people differently on line than they would face to face. It leads to a LOT of nastiness.

 

I don't think any mod would say anything about about your example except possibly to point out that there are many ways to play. Now, the day I said some idiot had bred a wall (I was cross and with hindsight I would be the first to agree that that wasn't OK) I did get warned, as it was easy to see who had done the breeding, so I was being rude to another player who had the absolute right to do that, however cross it made me. But people do hide behind the internet to be offensive, and it's not OK. I don't think it is that hard to see the difference, but if in doubt - rephrase.

[KageSora]

The thing is, the "who bred a wall" was just a random example.

 

Moderators are humans who have varying opinions, feelings, outlooks, behaviors, etc.  There are, inevitably, going to be times where one moderator hands out a warn for rudeness and another moderator thinks that's not right because the person wasn't being rude in their opinion.  (This is, actually, why a variety of places--not just sites but up to and including government services--will have points where a review of a contested decision is given to a different person to look over to see if the original judgement was correct or not.  Humans can make errors.  A mod having a bad day might be more harsh than on a good day because even when we try our hardest things can slip through at times--and this isn't even a paid job, this is a volunteer gig they do in their spare time as far as I know.  It's just the nature of being human.)

 

I've seen it happen plenty of times over the years across a variety of forums.

 

It's obviously not 100% avoidable since, as I said, mods are human and thus variable and fallible.

 

But more clearly laying out examples of what counts as crossing the line is always helpful, IMO, because what's classed as "rude" to one person might be simply direct communication from another.  Many things can impact this such as the culture you grow up in, the native language you speak, the general culture of the forum or site your using, etc.  Heck, the context of "commenting on something added to a game" vs "commented on a piece of art posted to somebody's personal account" dramatically changes what you'd consider rude vs permissible!

 

This site has a very...  Wide-seeming, at times, interpretation of what being "rude" means.  Not always moderator-enforced but other users will mini-mod if they think somebody is being too rude and that can make it hard to feel like you can express an opinion.

 

Over the years, and several times this year alone IIRC, I have seen various users say they feel like this site is a "good vibes only, no dissent, no disagreement with TJ/mods/artists allowed" kind of site.  While that's not actually true, if multiple people are saying it there's likely going to be more who are thinking it but not speaking up.  Something must be giving the impression that you have to be extra careful about your wording.

 

This doesn't help when there's a potential conflict of interest going on.  We have multiple mods who are also artists for the game.  I guarantee you there are releases where some people are hesitant to say anything because they're worried if they don't fawn they'll be hit with a warning for being rude because the artist took personal offense to their non-praise comment.

 

I don't mean "wow this is an ugly release" as that's obviously rude.  Think, more, "Hm, not really a fan of these ones because I've never really liked that color combo".  To me, that's not something I'd consider rude in the context of commenting on something new being released into a game.  It's something I'd consider pretty normal to expect as a user response to something being added to a game they play.  And it lacks an objective attack on the art and is just a statement of the user's personal taste.

 

Now, those sorts of statements aren't forbidden!  But I have seen other users try and shut that kind of talk down and enforce a "nothing that isn't praise allowed" type of vibe in release threads.

 

So, essentially, I think clarifying what counts as rude or disrespectful isn't just something that may better help users understand moderator decisions and have confidence that the mods are working off the same sort of objective rulings (vs their personal opinion on if something is rude or not which isn't objective) but could better help users understand in our own interactions with each other and how we might choose to remind each other or not when people make less than praising comments or when a thread starts to get a little heated before mods have to step in.

 

(Obviously there's only so much that can, or should, be done to address user misconceptions and/or experiences from elsewhere that might also contribute to some users feeling hesitant to speak up but I've rarely found over-clarifying to be worse than under-clarifying so...)

[Fuzzbucket]

My point was that what may feel like a harmless remark doesn't come over that way when posted on line. If I'd said to you over a coffee that some idiot had bred a wall - no problem; it wouldn't have been out there for loads of people who had contributed to get upset. I really dont' see how classifying can be done - you can't think of every possible remark hat might offend and list them all, but each of us posting can just think a bit harder before committing our thoughts to the internet. For what it's worth, I think he mods do a sterling job - and I have been warned several times myself. I've never failed to understand hwy (though it was sad the day it happened because my caps lock was stuck and I hadn't noticed...)

Edited November 15, 2023 by Fuzzbucket

[seventeendeer]

1 hour ago, KageSora said:

This site has a very...  Wide-seeming, at times, interpretation of what being "rude" means.  Not always moderator-enforced but other users will mini-mod if they think somebody is being too rude and that can make it hard to feel like you can express an opinion.

 

Now that you mention mini-modding - it might be worth adding "no mini-modding" as an explicit forum rule under "general guidelines", just to nip potential arguments in the bud. A lot of off-topic arguing on this site seem to spring from someone saying something that sort of toes the line, someone else telling them they're being mean, and then an endless escalating game of "no, you." This could be mitigated at least slightly by explicitly urging people to just report and move on.

 

1 hour ago, KageSora said:

Over the years, and several times this year alone IIRC, I have seen various users say they feel like this site is a "good vibes only, no dissent, no disagreement with TJ/mods/artists allowed" kind of site.  While that's not actually true, if multiple people are saying it there's likely going to be more who are thinking it but not speaking up.  Something must be giving the impression that you have to be extra careful about your wording.

 

To this bit, I do feel the need to add that a lot of the "what, I'm not allowed to have an opinion now?" crowd do seem to be saying this in bad faith. In my experience, it's often said/implied by those who don't want to be polite, who are frustrated with the fact that they have to play by certain rules in order to be allowed in the bouncy castle with the rest of the kids.

 

But that's a tangent - adding clearer guidelines should be beneficial either way, as mods can just link those crossing the line to the guidelines instead of having to explain themselves. Easier for mods, easier for anyone out there who genuinely struggles with these things, less room for misunderstandings, and less room for bad faith arguments to pass as legitimate criticism.

[Fuzzbucket]

6 minutes ago, seventeendeer said:

 

Now that you mention mini-modding - it might be worth adding "no mini-modding" as an explicit forum rule under "general guidelines", just to nip potential arguments in the bud. A lot of off-topic arguing on this site seem to spring from someone saying something that sort of toes the line, someone else telling them they're being mean, and then an endless escalating game of "no, you." This could be mitigated at least slightly by explicitly urging people to just report and move on.

Funny you should mention it - i have been warned for mini modding, ad the rule was shown to me, so it has to be here somewhere !

 

6 minutes ago, seventeendeer said:

To this bit, I do feel the need to add that a lot of the "what, I'm not allowed to have an opinion now?" crowd do seem to be saying this in bad faith. In my experience, it's often said/implied by those who don't want to be polite, who are frustrated with the fact that they have to play by certain rules in order to be allowed in the bouncy castle with the rest of the kids.

We do agree a lot today  

6 minutes ago, seventeendeer said:

But that's a tangent - adding clearer guidelines should be beneficial either way, as mods can just link those crossing the line to the guidelines instead of having to explain themselves. Easier for mods, easier for anyone out there who genuinely struggles with these things, less room for misunderstandings, and less room for bad faith arguments to pass as legitimate criticism.

I think this would be incredibly hard to do to even MOST people's satisfaction. Good luck, mods....

[purpledragonclaw]

30 minutes ago, seventeendeer said:

 

Now that you mention mini-modding - it might be worth adding "no mini-modding" as an explicit forum rule under "general guidelines", just to nip potential arguments in the bud. A lot of off-topic arguing on this site seem to spring from someone saying something that sort of toes the line, someone else telling them they're being mean, and then an endless escalating game of "no, you." This could be mitigated at least slightly by explicitly urging people to just report and move on.

 

 

To this bit, I do feel the need to add that a lot of the "what, I'm not allowed to have an opinion now?" crowd do seem to be saying this in bad faith. In my experience, it's often said/implied by those who don't want to be polite, who are frustrated with the fact that they have to play by certain rules in order to be allowed in the bouncy castle with the rest of the kids.

 

But that's a tangent - adding clearer guidelines should be beneficial either way, as mods can just link those crossing the line to the guidelines instead of having to explain themselves. Easier for mods, easier for anyone out there who genuinely struggles with these things, less room for misunderstandings, and less room for bad faith arguments to pass as legitimate criticism.

 

22 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Funny you should mention it - i have been warned for mini modding, ad the rule was shown to me, so it has to be here somewhere !

 

We do agree a lot today  

I think this would be incredibly hard to do to even MOST people's satisfaction. Good luck, mods....

 

In Ye Olden Times, no mini-modding was an official rule and warnable. My guess is it got lost to the ethers of forum updates and lost threads. Abandon all hope, ye who enter the gray lands to try to find them.

 

@Kaini since you're tackling the SD rules could you please add this back in there? Although it might be worth adding to the overall forum guidelines since that's a global rule. Either SkyWolf or I can add it to the FAQ until we have it there as well so it appears in more than one place.

 

seventeendeer and Fuzz, you are both correct. Cleaning up minimodding efforts, while not as bad as it used to be, is still a problem when we have to shut down a thread and wipe posts. We'll get that, at least, codified again.

 

Thank you everyone who has weighed in so far. Your voices are being heard here. 

 

Also Fuzz, I see what you did here. No offense taken.  

Edited November 15, 2023 by purpledragonclaw

[seventeendeer]

Oh, neat! Happy I could help out a bit! I had no idea mini-modding used to be against the rules. I can imagine the forum reformatting once in a while and outdated info slowly ending up as clutter might lead to rules that should still be in effect getting lost once in a while. As always, the time and effort the mod team puts into the site is super appreciated, good luck with the tidying-up to all of you!

 

(Also, sorry to briefly go off-topic, but-

 

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

(though it was sad the day it happened because my caps lock was stuck and I hadn't noticed...)

 

Unfortunately, that's a little funny ... My sincere condolences, good thing warnings go away after a while! I got got by the mods on another forum for something similar once, keyboards simply love to cause evil little accidents 😭)

 

Anyway, looking forward to the rule updates! Godspeed, y'all 👍

[Kaini]

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

There are, inevitably, going to be times where one moderator hands out a warn for rudeness and another moderator thinks that's not right because the person wasn't being rude in their opinion. 

 

The part you are all very much missing here is that we all collaborate constantly. Nearly NO warns are handed out based on the opinion of one moderator, which is what is being continually insinuated here. That is not factual. Reports go before all of us, two or three people agree yeah that probably warrants a warn, and it's handed out. 

 

I very specifically WAIT until I have other opinions before I do anything, which is why sometimes warns can be latent by several hours. I'm waiting for assent and feedback from my fellows unless it is dire or obviously over the line.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Kaini
Typo

[dracornithologist]

Another thing that might be helpful is clarity on consequences and severity. It doesn't seem like a thread being tagged spam or even a warning given for something deemed rude is a super heavy consequence, is that right? Users have a lot of leeway to talk with mods and have chances to not repeat infractions before any particularly dire action is taken, like banning. Although I definitely understand that the anxiety of possibly breaking a rule is its own heavy consequence. 

[Kaini]

Closed threads have no consequence whatsoever and neither do warns, really. They're just that, warnings. In the sceme of things, they do nothing. 

 

Bans from the forum are extremely rare. It's usually just spam bots we ban. I'm not going to ban a user acting normally, and it would take great escalations to get anywhere close, or truly unhinged behavior, hate speech etc. 

 

There are other tools at our disposal such as placing users on post moderation (posts must be approved by a moderator before they appear) but this is only used when people rack up multiple warns in short order and they are told openly it will happen next in their previous warnings. We try to communicate escalations clearly. If you haven't heard about it, you don't have to worry. 

[KageSora]

2 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I really dont' see how classifying can be done - you can't think of every possible remark hat might offend and list them all, but each of us posting can just think a bit harder before committing our thoughts to the internet.

 

Oh, it's for sure not possible to get everything--but I think it may be possible that even a small handful of additional examples might give users who are worried or struggling a little more to work with for inferring what is or is not considered out of line here (which might be very different from what's considered in or out of line in other places they hang out) going forwards.

 

"thinking a little bit harder" doesn't help if you're coming into it from a variety of other places where the thing you'd be saying would be considered completely normal and not rude at all.  It can help if you stop and think about it before you start name-calling.  But depending on the context something as simple as "Hm, this isn't to my tastes" is either considered totally expected commentary or totally inappropriate commentary.

 

2 hours ago, seventeendeer said:

To this bit, I do feel the need to add that a lot of the "what, I'm not allowed to have an opinion now?" crowd do seem to be saying this in bad faith. In my experience, it's often said/implied by those who don't want to be polite, who are frustrated with the fact that they have to play by certain rules in order to be allowed in the bouncy castle with the rest of the kids.

 

While I have seen that, I've also seen users who just got offended because somebody started poking holes in what they were suggesting or saying or who really like a specific suggestion and are upset that people might oppose it (or they hate it and are upset at people supporting it) try and hide behind "you're being rude" to silence dissent.  I haven't seen that recently, to be fair, but it's something I've seen in the past.

 

And more often I think it's genuinely just miscommunication.  Two people with very different communication styles butting heads and each thinking the other is being rude when really they're both being polite or at least normal according to their communication method but not according to the other's.  This happens constantly both online and offline and usually abates once the people involved figure out what's going on and discuss clearly their own needs in communication so that they can have some middle ground going forwards.

 

2 hours ago, purpledragonclaw said:

Cleaning up minimodding efforts, while not as bad as it used to be, is still a problem when we have to shut down a thread and wipe posts. We'll get that, at least, codified again.

 

One suggestion I'd say is give a tiny handful of examples of mini-modding.  It can sometimes be a little confusing what's considered mini-modding and what's "users mutually diffusing a situation themselves because they realized it was getting heated before it crossed into a fight the mods need to break up"

 

1 hour ago, Kaini said:

The part you are all very much missing here is that we all collaborate constantly. Nearly NO warns are handed out based on the opinion of one moderator, which is what is being continually insinuated here. That is not factual. Reports go before all of us, two or three people agree yeah that probably warrants a warn, and it's handed out. 

 

I very specifically WAIT until I have other opinions before I do anything, which is why sometimes warns can be latent by several hours. I'm waiting for assent and feedback from my fellows unless it is dire or obviously over the line.

 

How can it be said that we're missing something that isn't clearly defined?  I've looked at the FAQ and the forum rules--nowhere that I can readily find does it say "warnings are not handled by a single moderator but are discussed prior to being handed out".

 

Other forums I've been on it was "whatever mod first responds to a report is the sole person to handle it unless they ask for a second opinion, only after a warn is contested does it go up for review to another mod".  It's not unreasonable that those of us who are more familiar with that style of moderation would have assumed the same is true here especially as it doesn't seem to be clearly indicated in any of the rules or the FAQ or anything.

 

Honestly I think a lot of issues are less "the mods actually screwed up" and more "users have experiences with mods screwing up in other places and having clear guidelines might at least make users feel better about mod decisions" even if nothing actually changes in how things are enforced.

 

Basically transparency and clarity helping people feel more confident in the decisions being made about rules.

[Kaini]

13 minutes ago, KageSora said:

 How can it be said that we're missing something that isn't clearly defined?  I've looked at the FAQ and the forum rules--nowhere that I can readily find does it say "warnings are not handled by a single moderator but are discussed prior to being handed out".

 

Other forums I've been on it was "whatever mod first responds to a report is the sole person to handle it unless they ask for a second opinion, only after a warn is contested does it go up for review to another mod".  It's not unreasonable that those of us who are more familiar with that style of moderation would have assumed the same is true here especially as it doesn't seem to be clearly indicated in any of the rules or the FAQ or anything.

 

Honestly I think a lot of issues are less "the mods actually screwed up" and more "users have experiences with mods screwing up in other places and having clear guidelines might at least make users feel better about mod decisions" even if nothing actually changes in how things are enforced.

 

Basically transparency and clarity helping people feel more confident in the decisions being made about rules.

 

I don't know what happens on other forums. To me, this isn't something that needs stated. Of course no one person here acts alone? Except TJ when he wants to. Incorrect assumptions based on other sites are not on us. I don't know why the inner workings of how we work together would need to be spelled out anywhere. 

 

It's getting honestly tiresome to have things that happen elsewhere pinned on us, other people's expectations pinned on us, etc etc. 'Well X happens on X other site so we need to know X won't happen on DC!' Why? We can spell out the world and it still isn't enough. At some point we have to stop and say it works this way, we can't cater to every eventuality in the universe. 

 

We'll do what we can, of course. I will be sitting down to revamp the old SD rules this week/weekend, it's just been a tough week. 

[Starscream]

52 minutes ago, KageSora said:

One suggestion I'd say is give a tiny handful of examples of mini-modding.

In my years of experience as a mod I've found too many examples in rules brings up the too long; didn't read situation.  People see a wall of text and TL;DR then nope out.  This is because a tiny handful of examples, here and there, ends up as too much. Or, they'll say X scenario is not in that list, so it must be okay.

 

While I can sit and write stuff (I write fiction) until I'm blue in the face, others might not be so inclined to read that. The rules try to be clear and as concise as possible without too much superfluous information.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Starscream

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

One suggestion I'd say is give a tiny handful of examples of mini-modding.  It can sometimes be a little confusing what's considered mini-modding and what's "users mutually diffusing a situation themselves because they realized it was getting heated before it crossed into a fight the mods need to break up"

 

I think that IS mini-modding, If you just say "hey chill, no disrespect intended" that's one thing; if you say "that wasn't very nice" I'd think that was mini-modding. It;s up to the mods to address "bad behaviour" - for members to do it tends to inflame rather than defuse.

[KageSora]

2 hours ago, Kaini said:

 

I don't know what happens on other forums. To me, this isn't something that needs stated. Of course no one person here acts alone? Except TJ when he wants to. Incorrect assumptions based on other sites are not on us. I don't know why the inner workings of how we work together would need to be spelled out anywhere. 

 

It's getting honestly tiresome to have things that happen elsewhere pinned on us, other people's expectations pinned on us, etc etc. 'Well X happens on X other site so we need to know X won't happen on DC!' Why? We can spell out the world and it still isn't enough. At some point we have to stop and say it works this way, we can't cater to every eventuality in the universe. 

 

We'll do what we can, of course. I will be sitting down to revamp the old SD rules this week/weekend, it's just been a tough week. 

 

DC, like all sites, doesn't exist in a bubble isolated from the experiences of users that they carry with them through life.  Users have to base their understanding of how things work on something or they won't understand it at all.  And not understanding means they'll simply create assumptions based on what they see which may be wildly incorrect (and are more likely to result in a negative view of the mods than users who grasp something of how it works and have faith in the mod team as a result)

 

It's fine if you don't think that there should be more explanations of how moderation works.  But then you don't get to complain when users who don't know the behind-the-scenes stuff proceed to make their assumptions based on observation and past experience and then come to an incorrect conclusion.

 

It's entirely reasonable for users to base their understanding of things off working knowledge of their past experiences if there's nothing stated or shown to contradict that.  That's like.  How humans function.  A certain level of assumption based on things you've already learned is necessary to do basically anything in life.

 

And yes, it's true you can't cover every possible assumption--but things can be changed and shifted when it comes up that there is misunderstanding going on.  Sometimes that's as simple as a quick message in a thread or a DM to clarify, sometimes it's a change to the rules wording, etc.

 

2 hours ago, Starscream said:

In my years of experience as a mod I've found too many examples in rules brings up the too long; didn't read situation.  People see a wall of text and TL;DR then nope out.  This is because a tiny handful of examples, here and there, ends up as too much. Or, they'll say X scenario is not in that list, so it must be okay.

 

While I can sit and write stuff (I write fiction) until I'm blue in the face, others might not be so inclined to read that. The rules try to be clear and as concise as possible without too much superfluous information.

 

That's true but too little information leaves users breaking the rules without knowing they were doing so.  It's a hard balance to strike sometimes.

 

Possibly there could be a separate post for "examples that violate the rules" so those who don't feel the need to read all of it because it'd be too long can skip it and those who want more information can find it?  Or it could be hidden behind a spoiler for those who want examples and those who don't?

 

It's a hard balance to strike, though, like I said.  And one person's wall of text is another's blessed clarification which doesn't help the situation...

 

29 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

I think that IS mini-modding, If you just say "hey chill, no disrespect intended" that's one thing; if you say "that wasn't very nice" I'd think that was mini-modding. It;s up to the mods to address "bad behaviour" - for members to do it tends to inflame rather than defuse.

 

So, is it mini-modding or not for users to self-regulate a thread?  Because to me "hey chill, no disrespect intended" would absolutely fall under "users mutually diffusing a situation".  One user suggests to chill out, the other users agree and everybody steps back a bit to avoid a fight.

 

But it could also be argued that telling people to chill, even if you do it politely, counts as mini-modding and any actual comment about how the thread is getting heated could get you a warn.

[eeep]

I would also like to add some input on this because, as a new person, I started feeling like the moderators were effectively curating discussion topics in Site Discussion, which feels very heavy-handed and, honestly, out of character with what I've seen with their work across the rest of the forums (you are all great at keeping things civil!) This caused me to get really frustrated because I didn't really understand, according to the resources I was provided with in Site Discussion as rules, why certain posts (including my own) were being closed. So I really appreciate that more clarity will be added to the Site Discussion forum to make it easier for new folks to feel welcome and that there is indeed a place to chat about random stuff related to DC (it's in the Games forum for some reason?)

[Kaini]

There is a place to chat, and it is in the games forum because posts there don't increase your cumulative post count. It's a more free for all sort of section. 

[eeep]

Yes it makes total sense now that I know about it Was just confusing and not obvious coming in without any prior knowledge.

 

Edit: I think the issue I was trying to highlight was that if someone without any prior knowledge was to come in and post something technically on-topic in Site Discussion but not necessarily up-to-standards it can seem really strict to a newbie.

Edited November 16, 2023 by eeep

[Tini]

On 11/14/2023 at 2:34 PM, seventeendeer said:

 

Yeah, I'm actually surprised at how much more lax the rules surrounding talking about Neglecteds are these days, this has definitely changed over the years. I seem to remember a time where discussing how to make them at all was prohibited? If I'm remembering correctly? Either way, a more in-depth rules section would be nice, especially for newcomers - and potentially also for the mods? If a bit more explanation for closing a topic was needed, they could copy-paste the rule so the OP would know exactly which one was broken?

 

 

On 11/14/2023 at 2:34 PM, KageSora said:

 

I recall that as well, but I'm not sure if it was actually forbidden then changed or if it was users misunderstanding and assuming it was forbidden then learning it wasn't.  Either one would be a case for adding clarity to the rules, though.

oh no no no no no the neglected situation is far different, and funnier than that.

 

It was never an actual rule. The mods absolutely enforced it, we were all there, seeing it be enforced, but it wasn't an actual intended rule. We found out the day TJ made the official discord and people asked if they could talk about neglecteds there, unlike on forums and he was like 'yeah?? you can talk about them on fourms too??' and that was the day we all found out TJ didn't know there was a ND talk ban in effect for a decade.

 

I never thought about the fact forums only people might not know this bit of information. Please enjoy the lore.

[Chaos Rider]

2 hours ago, Tini said:

 

oh no no no no no the neglected situation is far different, and funnier than that.

 

It was never an actual rule. The mods absolutely enforced it, we were all there, seeing it be enforced, but it wasn't an actual intended rule. We found out the day TJ made the official discord and people asked if they could talk about neglecteds there, unlike on forums and he was like 'yeah?? you can talk about them on fourms too??' and that was the day we all found out TJ didn't know there was a ND talk ban in effect for a decade.

 

I never thought about the fact forums only people might not know this bit of information. Please enjoy the lore.

I thought discussion on making them was banned because people were advocating multiscrolling. Like suggesting you move important eggs to a second scroll so you could EQ to force hatch with risking anything. But that was over a decade ago, I could be misremembering

[LadyLyzar]

12 hours ago, KageSora said:

This doesn't help when there's a potential conflict of interest going on.  We have multiple mods who are also artists for the game.  I guarantee you there are releases where some people are hesitant to say anything because they're worried if they don't fawn they'll be hit with a warning for being rude because the artist took personal offense to their non-praise comment.

 

I don't mean "wow this is an ugly release" as that's obviously rude.  Think, more, "Hm, not really a fan of these ones because I've never really liked that color combo".  To me, that's not something I'd consider rude in the context of commenting on something new being released into a game.  It's something I'd consider pretty normal to expect as a user response to something being added to a game they play.  And it lacks an objective attack on the art and is just a statement of the user's personal taste.

I'm going to address this right now since I am one of the moderators in question.

 

It is entirely possible to not like a piece of art and not be hurtful to the person who made it.  "Not my favorite" is fine while "this is hideous" is absolutely not OK.  I have had plenty of people who didn't like my stuff, and don't recall issuing a warn to any of them.

 

On that note, we do not announce warns / bans publicly unless under extenuating circumstances where the community deserves an explanation.  Reason being, we see no reason to air anyone's dirty laundry.  We're all human around here, except the banned spambots of course.

 

However, a side effect of that is a lot of incorrect assumptions on how we do things.  I promise you, the mod team is a bunch of reasonable people or we wouldn't have been selected.  We discuss with one another all the time, even if you do not see it.  Have a little faith.