I recently created a piece of homebrew content and then submitted it to the community. Out of curiosity, I went and looked up how long it usually takes for homebrew contributions to be reviewed and either approved or denied. To my surprise, it takes months and it seems that with more users, it might require even longer.
I love D&D Beyond and want it to continue to grow and succeed, so I thought I'd drop a suggestion here--not sure how practical it is, but it's worth discussing.
You may be familiar with StackExchange, the engine that powers StackOverflow and other sites like it. It's very popular among software developers (probably the number 1 place we go to when we want our questions answered). The system works simply: when a user asks a question, the community answers. Then, users within the community vote up good answers and vote down bad ones. Eventually, the best answers float to the top.
Here's the big idea: As users contribute good answers and exhibit a positive influence on the system and its community, they gain reputation and unlock moderator capabilities. It's small things at first, like upvoting privileges, and then downvoting privileges. Eventually, though, users with a good enough reputation gain abilities like editing of posts for clarity and re-categorizing questions. Finally, at the highest levels, they receive expanded editing privileges on the site, becoming full moderators with a complete suite of administrator tools.
Do you guys think you could do something similar here, allowing responsible members of the community to lighten the load of staffers by giving them earned moderation capabilities? Let an ever-expanding group of qualified moderators review and approve of homebrew content, based upon the Homebrew Rules and Guidelines. Let them moderate the forums, curate user-generated items, and help the community. The inevitable overloading of staffers tasked with reviewing and moderating will suddenly become much more manageable, allowing this site to scale better.
That's a pretty cool idea and that sort of solution is something that was discussed.
D&D Beyond homebrew submission is something of a victim of its own success.
To give you a bit of insight, the moderator team have fairly regular video conference calls with staff, to discuss issues and the homebrew queue has been one of the top things discussed for months, along with ideas on what can be done to improve the system.
A solution has been selected and development time is being spent working on it (though I expect fixing issues that have arisen as part of the character sheet deployment will take priority).
tl;dr - it's being worked on and hopefully we'll have an announcement later this month, along with the solution to the current queue.
Disclaimer as always - I am not part of Curse staff and this is my interpretation of events and not any sort of promise of development.
There's another method that wouldn't turn worker-bees and suck-ups into moderators: have a forum permission that doesn't give any moderator powers but does give you the ability to review homebrew and label them with a "pass" or "fail" that then gets forwarded to a moderator to approve or reject. In fact, it could be some sort of private area where only staff, mods and reviewers have access to and multiple reviewers could look at brew. Any brew that a total of three reviewers (arbitrary number) say passes or fails, much like death saving throws, could then be quickly glanced over by a mod for approval or rejection based on that consensus. That way, you avoid certain biases of certain reviewers so that it's a fairer system. You also have a greater level of assurance that it's been thoroughly vetted before a moderator needs to look at it.
Then I could be a reviewer. I would make a terrible moderator who would ban all the other moderators, delete their accounts and lord over my dominion with cruelty and suffering as my core principle objectives, however I think I'd be an excellent reviewer :)
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
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I love D&D Beyond and want it to continue to grow and succeed, so I thought I'd drop a suggestion here--not sure how practical it is, but it's worth discussing.
You may be familiar with StackExchange, the engine that powers StackOverflow and other sites like it. It's very popular among software developers (probably the number 1 place we go to when we want our questions answered). The system works simply: when a user asks a question, the community answers. Then, users within the community vote up good answers and vote down bad ones. Eventually, the best answers float to the top.
Here's the big idea: As users contribute good answers and exhibit a positive influence on the system and its community, they gain reputation and unlock moderator capabilities. It's small things at first, like upvoting privileges, and then downvoting privileges. Eventually, though, users with a good enough reputation gain abilities like editing of posts for clarity and re-categorizing questions. Finally, at the highest levels, they receive expanded editing privileges on the site, becoming full moderators with a complete suite of administrator tools.
Do you guys think you could do something similar here, allowing responsible members of the community to lighten the load of staffers by giving them earned moderation capabilities? Let an ever-expanding group of qualified moderators review and approve of homebrew content, based upon the Homebrew Rules and Guidelines. Let them moderate the forums, curate user-generated items, and help the community. The inevitable overloading of staffers tasked with reviewing and moderating will suddenly become much more manageable, allowing this site to scale better.
Just a thought. Let me know what you think.
DM who enjoys steampunk settings.
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D&D Beyond FoundersThat's a pretty cool idea and that sort of solution is something that was discussed.
D&D Beyond homebrew submission is something of a victim of its own success.
To give you a bit of insight, the moderator team have fairly regular video conference calls with staff, to discuss issues and the homebrew queue has been one of the top things discussed for months, along with ideas on what can be done to improve the system.
A solution has been selected and development time is being spent working on it (though I expect fixing issues that have arisen as part of the character sheet deployment will take priority).
tl;dr - it's being worked on and hopefully we'll have an announcement later this month, along with the solution to the current queue.
Disclaimer as always - I am not part of Curse staff and this is my interpretation of events and not any sort of promise of development.
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
There's another method that wouldn't turn worker-bees and suck-ups into moderators: have a forum permission that doesn't give any moderator powers but does give you the ability to review homebrew and label them with a "pass" or "fail" that then gets forwarded to a moderator to approve or reject. In fact, it could be some sort of private area where only staff, mods and reviewers have access to and multiple reviewers could look at brew. Any brew that a total of three reviewers (arbitrary number) say passes or fails, much like death saving throws, could then be quickly glanced over by a mod for approval or rejection based on that consensus. That way, you avoid certain biases of certain reviewers so that it's a fairer system. You also have a greater level of assurance that it's been thoroughly vetted before a moderator needs to look at it.
Then I could be a reviewer. I would make a terrible moderator who would ban all the other moderators, delete their accounts and lord over my dominion with cruelty and suffering as my core principle objectives, however I think I'd be an excellent reviewer :)
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.