Apologies if this is in the incorrect place, feel free to move it if it is. I wasn't sure where to put this, so I defaulted to this forum. 

Over the past year, I have become active on two different site forums for discussing D&D, the first one being the forums on this site, and the other being on ENworld (which also discusses other TTRPGs and other similar topics). I have been active on this site's forums for longer than on ENworld, but have participated regularly throughout both recently, with more activity than usual due to the pandemic. This thread is mostly to share my experiences on both of them, giving a review of differences between them, and ideas how to improve certain aspects of this site's forums based on my experiences. Other members can comment with their own suggestions or thoughts on my suggestions, or discuss their experiences of differences between this site's forums and similar forums on different sites (probably on places like ENworld, Reddit, rpg.net, and similar sites). Let's get this thread started!

The Good/What This Site Does Better Than ENWorld

I think I should start by making it clear that I enjoy participating in these forums very much. If I didn't, I would not be an active participator on them. I like these forums, and I think that it does some things better than ENworld. 

Number One: People are overall more helpful/friendly. I'm not sure if this has much to do with how the site is run, but I have noticed that people are overall more friendly/positive on these forums than those on ENworld. My theory for this is that this site is more official than ENworld, and thus it brings in more new players asking questions than ENworld does, which leads to people answering those questions (typically in an understanding and kind manner), which overall just makes the overall community more positive. ENworld typically has more older players that have been around for longer and that often have played other TTRPGs, which is not to say that older players are less kind, it's just to say that they have a stronger understanding of the rules and don't have the need to be so "neighborly". I'm also not saying that this site's community is perfect, I'm just saying that the newer players that come to this site to ask questions about mechanics, lore, or how to work parts of the site's character builder, and play forum games or participate in Play by Posts tend to be nicer, and that affects the overall forums' community. 

Number Two: Active forum members are more personal. This is both a boon to the site's community, but also can often be a bad thing. There's a smaller host of active forum members on this site than on ENworld, so most of us know each other, or at least know of each other. People form social bubbles, "cults/clubs" in Adohand's Kitchen, get to know each other through the Play by Posts and Forum Games, and have more personal interaction with individuals in this site's community instead of just occasionally bumping into each other in discussions in the threads of ENworld. People are more likely to become friends here, and they also seem to be more likely to become "enemies" or rivals. In my year of experiencing the forums of ENworld, I have run across a few people that have rubbed me the wrong way, or a few that I seem to have a lot in common with, but there's just a lot less interpersonal interaction on that site's forums than on here. A lot more people use the "Follow" feature on this site than on ENworld. Again, this is probably mostly a product of this site being somewhat official, but it is still an overall benefit that this site has over the forums on ENworld. 

Number Three: The site resources. The homebrewer, the character builder, the dice roller, the tooltips, the front page articles, and so on. All of those are huge benefits that this site has over ENworld. They're separate from the site's forums, but are all useful in separate ways and often come up in the threads. ENworld does also have front-page articles, but most of them are geared to the history of the hobby, or different TTRPGs, or ENworld's Level Up project, making me have a higher appreciation of those on D&D Beyond than those on ENworld. I'm sure they're helpful and beneficial to some people, but they're just not overall as useful to me as the ones on this site when I first became active. This is a huge benefit that ENworld does not have, or at least doesn't have as high quality as D&D Beyond. Not totally connected to the site forums, but still worth a mention. 

Number Four: There are a lot less spam threads. This is somewhat a minor benefit, but it's still worth mentioning. For some reason, every night, ENworld's forums get filled up with a bunch of spam threads, typically in a foreign language or promising free college, or some other scam like that. They're very easy to recognize and to ignore, but it is still an annoyance. This benefit to the site doesn't really come much at its own doing, but more a benefit that it gets due to ENworld having this issue. 

Number Five: No ads. ENworld has ads, and you have to pay to get rid of them. This site does not have that, and I cannot begin to express my appreciation for this. Similar to this, on ENworld, you have to pay in order to get a title (but it can be a custom one). This is a minor annoyance, but still a small boon that this site has over ENworld (even if you can't customize your title on this site). 

The Okay/Could Use Some Work

Again, I stress that I enjoy participating on this site, but that doesn't mean that everything about it is perfect. I understand that it takes hard work to both create a site like this and to keep it running, but there are some things that ENworld does slightly better than D&D Beyond on its forums. These are more of the minor things that I think that ENworld's forums does better in one way or another than D&D Beyond's forums. More annoyances or small issues than larger problems. 

Number One: The reaction system. This one is a bit of a mixed issue. On D&D Beyond's forums, most of you are aware of the "Thanks" system, which is the arrow symbol at the bottom of everyone's posts that you can use to "upvote" a post you found helpful or agree with. On ENworld, they use a few separate emojis, which has its boons and it has some issues with it. The main benefit that ENworld's system has over D&D Beyonds is that it's more apparent when it happens, as you get a notification for that (if you choose to enable that), and it's a bit easier to spot. I am quite embarrassed to admit that I spent just about a year active on this site's forums without noticing the "Thank" button, much less understanding what the total "Thanks" in my profile meant. I didn't have this issue on ENworld's forums, as they're really hard to miss. The emojis you have to choose from are a thumbs up, a love emoji, a laughing emoji, and a sadface emoji. The benefits to this is that you can put a different reaction on posts depending on if a post was making a joke and you want to share that it made you laugh, or if a post just makes a good point and you want to share that you agree with it with a thumbs up emoji. That's a huge benefit, but it comes at the cost of people also being able to use a laughing emoji to mock your post or a sadface emoji when you say something they disagree with. These are fairly uncommon practices on ENworld, as they're discouraged by moderation on the site and punished when caught, but that doesn't stop some from getting through. The "Thanks" system on D&D Beyond also is more buggy than the reaction system on ENworld, which is also worth mentioning (In my experience, anyway). 

Number Two: The quote feature. On ENworld, the quote system isn't perfect, but it is way less of a headache to deal with than that on this site. First of all, when you quote a post that is already quoting someone, the original post that's being quoted automatically is cut out and isn't quoted in your post. This stops quote chains from even starting, which helps avoid situations like this one (granted, that is a forum game, but I've seen them get pretty big and annoying in normal threads, and it's a real annoyance). Furthermore, when you quote someone, if anyone clicks on that name, it will take you back to the post that said that in order to give the context without reloading the page. We have a similar feature on this site (which also took me about a year to notice. Yes, I have a -10 to Perception. Don't judge), but it makes the page reload, and the button is quite small, causing a lot of accidental slip-ups where you actually click on the poster's name instead of the black arrow/triangle-thingy, taking you to their profile page and not to their post. Let's just say that the quoting system on this site has created a ton of minor frustrations that add up when using this site that ENworld avoids by doing things in a different way. (Minor mention here, when you click on someone's profile picture or hover over their name on ENworld, it doesn't automatically take you to their profile page. Instead, it opens up a small pop-up that shows you a small amount of information about them, like their post and reaction scores, an option to PM them, and similar features to what happens on this site when you hover over their name, but it's just slightly more convenient and less annoying, enough that I feel like mentioning it here.)

Number Three: The Ignore feature. This one is related to a few other issues that I'm going to bring up/have brought up already in this post. Both D&D Beyond and ENworld have Ignore feature, which work in similar manners in order to accomplish the same goal, but the version on ENworld is far superior. I'm not saying this to bash the creators/coders/owners of this site, I'm simply mentioning this based on my experiences with both systems. On ENworld, once you ignore a person, you can no longer see them at all in any thread they participate in. This is the intent of the feature on this site, but it has one major loophole: the quote system. When someone quotes someone else on this site, it doesn't matter if you have that person on Ignore, everyone can see all of their post. The differences between the Quote Systems on ENworld and D&D Beyond causes this difference, as on ENworld, if someone you're Ignoring has been quoted, their post that is quoted is automatically hidden (you have an option to click on the post to see it, though). This minor difference makes a huge disparity in my experiences with both systems that are trying to achieve the same thing. (I also have had to use the Ignore feature much, much less than I have on D&D Beyond, which is related, but part of a separate issue.)

Number Four: The owner of ENworld.org, Morrus, is very active on his site, not just as a producer of content, but also an active poster and he will even put on the Mod Hat when necessary. This has both positive and negative effects. I honestly have no idea who the main person that is in charge of D&D Beyond is (though I know that Fandom owns it and that Adam Bradford and Todd Kenrick were some of the main faces of the platform before recently leaving). This gives Morrus more personal legitimacy and run of the site, which can help keep things in line, but also can cause issues if you have a bad interaction with him (which is fairly difficult to do, as he's a pretty nice guy, but there is always a risk of a misunderstanding). Again, this one has its upsides and downsides, and isn't really a real criticism of this platform, it's just a difference that I have noticed has had positive effects on some occasions and negative ones on other occasions (which doesn't happen often). Simply put for the benefits, it's much easier to talk to the authority of the site than it is on this one (at least in the sense that the guy is active and you know how to talk to him, while this is much less clear on this site). I'm not recommending that this site gets a main spokesperson that goes through the site's forums to communicate with the community, but just listing something that I've noticed to possibly try to emulate in some way.

Number Five: The Notification System. Oh boy, where do I start. Firstly, notifications on ENworld don't cap at 20. As far as I know, there's no limit to how many the notification icon or notification page can show at a time (I've gotten into the 50's a couple times, but never into the hundreds, so it may cap around 99, which is much higher than 20). Secondly, the notification icon will go down as you scroll down the page, so you don't have to go all the way back up to the top of the page to check if you have any new notifications. Next, the notifications automatically update as you participate in the forums, so if you use the Reaction feature on a post, your notifications will update if you have any unchecked ones, which makes it so you don't have to reload the page to check your notifications. Next, I've had a few bugs with the Notification System on this site (currently I'm only getting notifications a few hours after they happen, which can make me get notifications for someone posting a thread that there are only two posts in, mine and the OP, as I get an alert a few hours after the OP was posted, which is quite annoying), but absolutely no bugs with the notification feature on ENworld. Next, if you reload a thread and new posts appear, you don't get notifications for those new posts, as you've already seen them. Finally, if you go to a thread that is giving you multiple notifications, whether it be because someone reacted to your post, or quoted you, or just responded to the thread, all of your notifications from that thread go away from the total unread ones on the notification icon. Simply put, the Notification System on this site is a major annoyance, and the one on ENworld is superior in practically every way. Again, this isn't to bash this site or it's coders, it's just to compare the systems. 

Number Six: This is a small but simple one. ENworld has coding where if you put the @ symbol before a member's name, it will link you to their profile, even giving suggestions below for you to get the name spelled correctly. Additionally, if someone uses this feature in their post, you will get a notification for someone having mentioned you in their post, which is very handy while also being simple. 

Number Seven: On ENworld, you can jump to different pages in a thread without having to press the "Next"/"Prev" button over and over and over again. 'Nuff said. 

Number Eight: The Search button is much simpler than the one on this site, but also works way better than this one. I don't think I need to elaborate on how this works, just go check it out if you want to see it work wonders. I'm fairly certain that anyone that has tried to use the Search button on this site has felt like they were banging their head on a brick wall to no avail. (It lets you see the context of the post in the search function instead of just the title of the thread its contained in!)

The Ugly/Things That Need Fixing (IMO)

I really feel the need to reiterate this. I am not bashing this site, its owners, its coders, its moderators or staff, or anyone else. I'm just sharing my experiences and my opinions on how to improve things on this site that I feel need improving based on what I have experienced on two different sites with D&D related forums. 

Number One: The moderation system. I have had a much more favorable experience with the moderation system on ENworld than that of D&D Beyond, and I know a lot of others who have had bad experiences with the moderation system on this site. This isn't to attack anyone, or to try to undo anything that's already happened, as what's done is done, but merely to give suggestions to improve it in the future. I will make a bulleted list below for why I feel through my experiences that the moderation system on ENworld is far superior to that of D&D Beyond:

1. Moderators are active in the forums. This is a big one. Not only do they start threads to promote constructive discussion, but they also participate in friendly debate, act quickly, and make their rules very clear. The rules on this site are fairly clear, but they're more vague than they are on ENworld, which makes unintentionally breaking site rules on ENworld much harder to do and much easier to recognize. I'm not recommending that all of the moderators or staff members start posting all the time on these forums, but that they become more reachable in the threads and don't only come in when things start getting bad. This recent thread is a perfect example of the behavior that I feel should be more common on this site's forums, and I was going to recommend this even before Davyd chose to participate in that thread without the Mod Hat on. 
2. Moderator actions are visible. I understand the intent of keeping moderator action hidden on this site, but in my experience with both forms and through the experience of others I know on this site, I far prefer the visible moderator action route. This compounds on the fact that the rules of ENworld are very clear, because if a post violates site rules, it won't be taken down, instead, it will be marked by a moderator above their post with whichever site rule(s) it is breaking, and a Moderator will respond openly and directly to that post explaining why the behavior is bad and disallowed. To allow the moderators to still have authority, responding to moderator action in anything but a private PM is strictly prohibited and against site rules. This is a major factor that allows for threads to go so long on ENworld, even the contentious ones. On this site, it is nearly impossible to tell if someone has been punished for bad behavior, because you never see the action happening. This is meant to protect the privacy of individuals, but it ends up making it harder for the regular community to understand what is and isn't allowed and what the punishments for those specific behaviors are. 
3. Trouble-makers get kicked out of individual and specific threads. This is very simple, but is a huge, huge boon to the site community of ENworld. Too many threads on this site are closed down because the same people who are trying to derail it manage to cause enough trouble that the thread ceases providing any worthwhile discussion. If a person is warned that their actions are against site rules in a thread and they continue doing that behavior in the thread, they get kicked out of the thread and are unable to post in it anymore. This promotes good-faith discussion and allows for the thread to go on much longer without having to get closed because a few people were bad-acting. I've only heard of this happening one time on this site, while I've seen it happen dozens on ENworld, and I've seen it work on that site's forums. This isn't to say that threads aren't ever closed down, but it allows for them to last longer and make more points about the topic before either being shut down or just having its participants tire of the debate and leave it. I have never seen a thread on this site (barring forum games and adohand's kitchen) reach over 30 pages without being shut down by mods. On ENworld, I have seen over a dozen threads with over 100 or sometimes even 200 pages (all with 20 posts on each page like on this site) before just dying down. Some need moderators to shut them down, but quite a few of them don't, which is a huge benefit that is provided mostly by this simple action.
4. Moderator actions are specific in punishment to both the person and the rule being broken. On this site, Infraction Points expire, and once they do, though they're still on your record, they don't affect how long/harshly you are punished in the future. This allows for both very inactive/patient trouble makers to get away scot-free, and also detaches their action into just a number of points that you have to keep below a certain number. There are "Warning Points" on ENworld, but the moderation system doesn't really depend on them. If you do something that is a clear violation of site rules, you'll get one warning point, but that's more a tool for the moderators to keep track of the troublemakers than a strict points system like D&D Beyond's Infraction Points system. The moderators will actually discuss with one another about what to do about a specific forum-member that has been causing issues, typically because of recent actions or their total Warning Points, and real punishment isn't dependent on some detached Infraction Point score, but on the individual's actions. Some punishments can be temporary bans from the site or specific forums on the site, perma-bans, taking away their right to make threads, making it so they can't interact with certain people (by forcing them to Ignore them), and similar punishments. On ENworld, the punishments for bad behavior are only very rarely bans, which come at a last resort, not a "if you do this much stuff against the site guidelines, no matter the reason, within a certain time period, you will automatically get banned". 
5. Moderators don't get involved when they don't need to get involved. Moderation is a serious occurrence on ENworld. The person who gets moderated almost always knows it's coming to them. It happens when everyone knows that they need to be moderated, not when something leans on or barely crosses the line. Furthermore, the community is allowed to "self-moderate", with community members allowed to point out bad behavior and why it's bad without being punished or without needing the mods to sweep in. It helps solve problems without the moderators coming in to fix things, which just helps the mods do their job more easily and allows for people to not worry that pointing out bad behavior will get them in trouble for making a personal attack. 
6. Moderators seem more human. Maybe this is a combination of them being more visible, more forum-active, and more personal, but this is a major issue that I have with D&D Beyond. Moderators should seem like authority figures on their site, but the people under the Moderator Hat shouldn't. You should be able to see their faults, because it lets you connect with them as people and be more understanding when you are on the receiving end of moderation. On this site, about 95% of the time a moderator comes into a thread, it's because they're giving out punishments and warning people to obey site rules, or they're explaining how a part of the site's toolset works. This makes them feel sort of . . . "robotic", for a lack of a better term. Which is really disappointing because I actually like a lot of the moderators on this site as people, and them being so impersonal makes it harder for you too see them as anything but moderators. A huge benefit to how the version of the moderation system on ENworld is that you get to know the moderators as people, and can interact them in the threads without their mod hat on. This is really a rare occurrence on this site, and it causes a lot of problems.

Basically, forums are meant for discussing, and a lot of the differences that ENworld uses in its moderation system actually works and helps promote discussion. In my experience, there are big issues with this site's moderation system that hurt the forum's ability to function as well as it can. 

Number Two: Posts getting deleted if the page is reloaded. Not as big of an issue as the above one, but it is still a huge problem that I have run into a ton of times on this site, but it is practically impossible to happen on ENworld (it only happens if you're not connected to the internet, because of course it would). On ENworld, your post is saved every few seconds or something, and it's saved whether you reload the page, close the tab, or shut off your computer. It automatically saves your post to that specific thread until you come back to it. Additionally, you can click on a different page of the thread and the post will come with you in the "reply" bar no matter where you go in the thread. This is a huge issue for me and I know it's one for others, and I also assume it's not an easy problem to fix (I'm assuming a lot of my suggestions aren't particularly easy to implement), but it is a big deal. If I am typing up a post on ENworld, and want to go back to a previous page to quote a post, I can do so without opening up a new tab or losing my post. This is a big deal, especially for people like me that make long posts, and especially for people with ADHD like me that are a bit forgetful when it comes to this sort of thing. 

Number Three: Again, not quite as big of a deal as the two above, but it's still important. On ENworld there is a "Meta Discussion" forum, to talk about things on the site, or just off-topic posts about the site (not ones about bugs or suggestions for the site, just to talk about site data, or behavior online, and so on), and another to discuss other things that are off-topic, but not really related to the internet or the site. I suggest that we create another "Meta" forum in the Off Topic Forums section of the site, with Adohand's Kitchen being filled with things unrelated to D&D and D&D Beyond, while the "Meta" forum would be about off-topic things related to the site/internet-in-general, but not related to the bugs or features of the site. For example, a thread about everyone's favorite animals would be in Adohand's Kitchen, while a thread discussing the amount of users on the site or different types of internet trolls would be in the Meta forum. Just a suggestion that could help differentiate topics, as Adohand's Kitchen currently is kind of the forum for threads where people couldn't decide where else to put them, so it just becomes a land of cults/clubs, discussion about the real world, and a bunch of other random threads. This thread and others like it would probably belong in a "Meta" forum, which is mainly why I'm suggesting it. 

That wraps it up for now. If I think of anything else, I'll edit this post and make it clear that it was added in an edit. If anyone else wants to add to suggestions related to this or propose alternate routes, feel free to do so below. I hope that this helps in some real and noticeable way, mostly because I am a firm believer that everything that can improve should improve (which is basically everything, except bacon and ice cream, which are perfect and need no changes whatsoever), but also partially because of all the hours I spent writing this and coming up with suggestions. I'll see you all around, and wish you all a good day! 

The ignore feature here isn't an ignore feature, it's an abuser empowerment system.

I just want to say this is the archetype if ideal feedback; even handed, honest but not judgemental, and must importantly, actionable! That last part is key; feedback that actually describes how you'd like something too work is invaluable. I will most certainly be passing this along as I think there's a lot of useful insight here, so thank you for the time writing it out.

Thank you so much for the feedback, Third_Sundering! This is a great, detailed read that I look forward to diving into in more detail on Monday.

So first and foremost, in terms of moderation you have to really understand a few things.  Note that I'm not saying anyone specific in this thread doesn't understand, I'm just setting a level playing field.

ENWorld is a discussion forum first and foremost.  D&D Beyond has discussion forums but is a platform for the digital 5th edition products first and foremost.

ENWorld runs on dedicated forum software, whereas D&D Beyond is run mainly on Cobalt with some other applications on the back that tie into all the different content.

Both websites sell things, but D&D Beyond and the way it works the forums are far more integrated to the product.  ENWorld sells physical product or PDF, not an evolving digital ecosystem to house your 5th edition needs.

These things change how moderation teams work, and in general because of how licensing works, changes how moderation works.  I cannot speak for either team but I wouldn't be surprised if the moderation team at ENWorld was had a bit more leash because it's all in house, versus here on D&D Beyond, which in turn has a license with Fandom for D&D and not wanting to strain that licensing agreement.  

I think the biggest thing is site interaction between staff and its userbase.  Joe took over, and he doesn't post.   The irony is his second to last post was replying to me saying where I asked about hey, you never post here, how can I trust you....and then he never posted again after that day.  He is MUCH more present in terms of youtube/twitch content, and I get that is his job!  He's the CONTENT guy.  He's the visual face, but these forums don't get any love.  Same thing with ANY of the staff from the site with the exception of the moderator team

Shit, who ARE all the people who work here?  We don't even have a list of the moderation team.  I know of Sedge, Davyd and Sillvva and that's it.  Who are our moderators?  Who are the people who actually do things for the site?  

We're going to get a lot of people who will post here saying hey thanks for the feedback, but we'll never find out what happens with it.  Threads like this are a beacon for it.  That's not what's being asked of either.  For me, the big takeaway is the lack of community investment for those who run the website.  Mellies last post was locking a thread in April, and prior to that the updates(which no one posts anymore to these forums).  Most of the red names that have posted front page articles have maybe posted 10 times in their entire career.  I get that isn't their job either but it's something else to point out.

Quote from AKADDK >>

The ignore feature here isn't an ignore feature, it's an abuser empowerment system.

This thread isn't really the place to discuss this topic, maybe make another thread for it, but I do partially agree with this, and in less blunt terms. I typically avoid using Ignore features, and almost never do so permanently, but I understand why they need to exist. There can be situations where someone else is cyberstalking or harassing someone on online forums, which is why this kind of feature needs to exist. This is also exactly why I criticized the loophole that the Ignore feature D&D Beyond currently has in the OP, as if someone quotes the Ignored person, the person that is Ignoring them can see the posts that they're trying to avoid, going against the whole point of having the feature, which can be harmful in a case where someone was being harassed or stalked online. 

My issue with the Ignore feature in general, besides that specific loophole, is when people are encouraged to use the Ignore feature. IMO, the Ignore feature exists to keep people safe and for worst case scenarios, not to be a replacement for moderation. It makes participating on the forums a lot more difficult when you can't see a lot of the posts in a thread, especially when they're arguing against you and you both can't see their arguments and can't respond directly to them. The Ignore feature is a tool to keep people safe and allow people to see who and what they want to see on this site, not an excuse to not deal with a problem poster because you can "just Ignore them". 

Quote from Stormknight >>

Quote from Spideycloned >>

 Shit, who ARE all the people who work here?  We don't even have a list of the moderation team.  I know of Sedge, Davyd and Sillvva and that's it.  Who are our moderators?  Who are the people who actually do things for the site?  

We're going to get a lot of people who will post here saying hey thanks for the feedback, but we'll never find out what happens with it.  Threads like this are a beacon for it.  That's not what's being asked of either.  For me, the big takeaway is the lack of community investment for those who run the website.  Mellies last post was locking a thread in April, and prior to that the updates(which no one posts anymore to these forums).  Most of the red names that have posted front page articles have maybe posted 10 times in their entire career.  I get that isn't their job either but it's something else to point out.

Hey there Spideycloned,

The site rules & guidelines has a list of all of the current moderator team and is a great place to check if you want to know.

As for staff (red name), I have a few more than 10 posts, but I agree that the majority of staff don't interact with these forums. Many of the people who work for Fandom, on the D&D Beyond site, are developers, designers, managers, researchers, and other roles.

What engagement do you feel is lacking from staff?

As Third_Sundering and others raised, these forums aren't the primary focus of D&D Beyond. We value them and love our community, which is spread across forums, discord, twitter, instagram, facebook, reddit, twitch, youtube and many other social media sites.

With regards feedback, it saddens me that your takeaway is a lack of community investment, as that's something we work hard at.

Can you let us know what you feel better would look like?

Just what I said.

I appreciate the mod list, lets me dig in and prove a point.  

• Conn_Eremon - Last post in 2019
• Davyd - Last post today
• filcat - Last post last month, if you go to something besides play by post?  No idea, I went back to September of 2020.
• GPyromania - Bugs and Support
• MellieDM - Outlined earlier, did a thanks for feedback post today, prior to that a locked thread and then the dev updates in April
• Sedge - Two days ago
• Sillvva - Four days ago
• Sorce - Bugs and Support
• Timer - Bugs and Support

Based on this, looks like there are two categories of mods.  Ones that handle "The community", being Dayvd, Sedge, Sillvva, Mellie(who is also an admin), and those who are moderators but primarily focus on the product, being Timer, Sorce, GPyromania.  What filcat and Conn_Eremon do, no idea?  The Site Rules and Guidelines thread also is made by the former creator and then updated with the former community manager.  Maybe its time for a new coat of paint?    

The product that I pay for is here on this website.  I'm not, and many aren't I would imagine, going to follow you, or Joe or Mellie or Amy or Sedge on twitter, facebook, Instagram, youtube etc to keep in line with "the product" when the vast majority of the content on those things are going to be your personal things. When Joe publically announced he was taking over as the face, I 100% creeped on his twitter, and it was nice to find a like minded individual and sure, he does talk about D&D but its primarily him.  It's not to be used as a source of content for this website.  If you look at the D&D Beyond Twitter, 90% of it is just talking about the new content, and while there are tweets and replies, they are minimal.  Same thing with the facebook.  Is there an official D&D Beyond reddit?  Instagram?  We talk about the community, are you referencing the D&D community as a whole or just this website? They're two different things. 

I think a great idea to help bridge the gap from the content teams to the forums would be AMA threads.  Obviously they aren't going to be open forever because those who are working on the development side are paid employees and a AMA would have to be paid compensated time.  It could be announced when that person has dedicated time to read and respond, as they are a paid employee but having a direct outlet from the userbase to those teams on occasion is a wonderful idea.  This is already being done via the twitch platform, why not bring it back to the website?  This would engender a feeling of community and more important give those people on these forums who feel its an echo chamber the ability to have their voice heard.  I have 300 posts, I'm a minority but I do tend to speak up when these types of posts come around because I feel its important to share feedback.  I've also bought every single thing on this site except the Tactical Maps, so I'm invested.  I want it to be great.

I guess my main thought here is that the main forum(general discussion) seems like an afterthought to most of the people who work here.  Yes, there are those who post frequently, but by and large?  Most don't.  I understand the complexities of having a role and staying in that role, and not being able to step outside that role.  As someone who works in leadership for a fortune 50 company, knowing that you can only represent the piece of the business officially that you represent, but to the outside people will just go "Oh hey you work for X DO THIS FOR ME".  These people probably LOVE D&D, have played the game for years/decades, and are SUPER excited to work on a product that will make their home game even better....but what are they doing for THIS community?  Right here, on THIS website?  I'm not looking for a parasocial relationship, Joe isn't my friend.  He will never be my friend(Sorry Joe, you're a great guy and all but I don't see us ever meeting up for a beer or enjoying a conversation via DM.  Would love to talk politics some time!), and I'm ok with that.  Honestly, separation is a good thing.  The problem is right now the separation is the Pacific Ocean. 

I wish to second a few things brought up in this thread, to support their case.

1.) I've been on many official-website gaming forums in the past, and on a few of them have amassed a post count higher than the one I've got here.  MechWarrior Online, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2, to name a few.  I've also been a part of the moderation team myself in the (distant) past for a decently-sized community of a few thousand users, so I'm not entirely ignorant of the back end on these things.  Moderation here on DDB is the most confusing I've encountered in my travels across the Internet, by a sizeable margin.  The shroud of absolute secrecy the moderation team tries to work under makes it very difficult to know why any given moderation action has happened, or even that moderation has happened at all.  The rules for any given forum always boil down to "If you're an ******* we'll do something about you", but on most other sites the userbase had a pretty firm grasp of what counted as assholery and can steer clear of it.  On this site?  I have very little idea of what will set moderation off, as I've had posts taken down and infracted that I would not in a million years have predicted would be problematic.

The appeal system is some balm, but it's unreliable and also invisible to others so it cannot aid in helping establish the website's boundaries.  The entire moderation system on this website feels incohesive and scattershot, as if each individual mod has their own idea of what's kosher and what isn't and applies it independently of the others.  There's very little accountability, since any discussion of the moderation team, their actions, or the system is generally grounds for instant infraction points and not a small number of them.  I am frankly downright astonished this thread has received the response it has and am truly heartened to see it, which is why I'm responding and hoping I can add my voice to Third's and others.

I know I'm a spicy ***** and sometimes I need to take my medicine.  That's fine, and not at issue.  I just wanted to echo Third's idea that transparency and accountability are important on more than just the business side of things.

2.) Spideyclone has a very strong point - this is the official D&D Beyond website.  The product is here, the people are here.  Yes, the overall DDB community is spread across a dozen social media systems because it has to be - if DDB didn't get out in front and start/manage those communities itself, the social media swarm would do so for them.  I get that.  This is still the official site.  It's been a severe issue on other communities and game forums I've been at in the past, when a developer assumes that everybody follows everything and they scatter their news, their responses, and their activities across some-but-not-all of their various social media presences without reciprocating that information onto their official website.  Anyone who wanted to stay informed had to track everything, and that caused no end of grief and friction on the official forums.  There were even community-made tools in Path of Exile and Guild Wars 2, a "Developer Twitter Tracker" that allowed forum users to specifically find and locate relevant social media posts from devs and community management folks specifically because that was the only way to figure out what was going on.

That does not feel great, when this is supposed to be the centralized hub of all things DDB.

I can confirm for myself, at the very least - I despise most social media systems.  I'm on the DDB Discord but I never use it, because there is no way to have a conversation in a Discord channel with ten thousand users scrolling by at a significant fraction of the speed of light.  Reddit is a self-perpetuating dumpster fire that's only better than Facebook, Twitter, or the like because it's never pretended to be anything other than what it is.  I avoid those websites harder than I avoid Covid hotspots, and I'm not even remotely the only one.  My entire D&D playgroup and virtually everyone else I know on the Internet is much the same.  Even if we weren't, and we were all crazy socialite butterflies frequenting every social media service that existed?  You can't buy books on Twitter.  You can't buy books on Reddit. 

You buy books here.

When I want news on/from/about DDB, I come here.  If it's not here, I don't see it, and I only learn about it if someone here mentions it.  This place should be the primary community space for DDB.  You guys have the tightest control here, your most loyal users are here.  Nowhere on the Internet should the DDB team have a stronger presence than they do on their own official website.

And, since it's only polite and proper, some kudos to balance out the blah.

3.) I've quite enjoyed the integration between DDB-the-tool and DDB-the-forum, the ability to encode snippets of the game rules in reference for some discussions is super helpful.  It's a real advantage that this place in particular has over other, third-party gaming websites or even first-party gaming websites for video games that don't/can't feature that sort of integration.  DDB's ability to be a reference tool as well as a community is super helpful, especially since most other game sites I've been on relied extremely heavily on their associated community wikis as a reference tool.  In D&D's case, all the "Community Wikis" are worthless, pointless seas of terrible homebrew content being passed off as "Official D&D", which makes looking up the game's past exceedingly difficult.  DDB's community resources, both in terms of tools and systems and in terms of older, experienced users who can answer questions about the history of the game without shoving their poorly designed pet homebrew down your throat, have been super helpful. 

I'd love to see more emphasis placed on this advantage in the future.  DDB's ability to tie its forum and its tools together is super neat and worth pursuing.  I'd love to be able to share snippets of my character sheets in a forum post, or to be able to throw some of my increasing stash of virtual dice instead of using the roll editor.  I know there's issues with someone being able to publicly post licensed content if things like sheet snippets go through, but technically I can just link my sheet to someone online and they'll be able to read all the features on that sheet anywho, where they bought the books that gave me those features or not.  Something to consider, I suppose.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

1.)Moderation here on DDB is the most confusing I've encountered in my travels across the Internet, by a sizeable margin.  The shroud of absolute secrecy the moderation team tries to work under makes it very difficult to know why any given moderation action has happened, or even that moderation has happened at all.  The rules for any given forum always boil down to "If you're an ******* we'll do something about you", but on most other sites the userbase had a pretty firm grasp of what counted as assholery and can steer clear of it.  On this site?  I have very little idea of what will set moderation off, as I've had posts taken down and infracted that I would not in a million years have predicted would be problematic.

The appeal system is some balm, but it's unreliable and also invisible to others so it cannot aid in helping establish the website's boundaries.  The entire moderation system on this website feels incohesive and scattershot, as if each individual mod has their own idea of what's kosher and what isn't and applies it independently of the others.  There's very little accountability, since any discussion of the moderation team, their actions, or the system is generally grounds for instant infraction points and not a small number of them.  I am frankly downright astonished this thread has received the response it has and am truly heartened to see it, which is why I'm responding and hoping I can add my voice to Third's and others.

So I'm going to defend moderation, and then not defend moderation.  I think it boils down to that lack of consistency you are talking about, but both sides of the coin.

I have NEVER been on a forum where users are more obsessed with calling out ad hominem attacks, logical fallacies, strawman fallacies, stormwind fallacies, name any sort of named type of attack. I even fell into this trap at one point and had to reel myself back.  This makes moderation difficult.  Instead of report and move on, the argument gets engaged, and engaged, and engaged, and engaged to the point of echo chambers.  I don't want to shut down discussion but same token, some threads obviously run their course and its no longer a discussion, its just a honeypot for trolling.  They EVENTUALLY get closed, I don't feel that they get closed fast enough.

Same token, these forums obviously have very intelligent people.  I have to believe that most of the time they are well intentioned.  Even if I personally believe that some specific users aren't, I have to believe the vast majority are.  Any rules system is going to be set for the vast majority, and those exceptions have to be handled in specific, special circumstances.  The moderation, but I feel the rules system is too lax.

So, all points expire in 90 days, regardless of issues.    What are the differences between "hate speech" and "MAJOR HATE SPEECH".   Why are advertisements even on the same level as personal attacks?  If you''ve committed a SERIOUS violation, why does that not expire on a longer time table?  I get that all rules systems are meant to be reform systems, but they should also be a caution against future infractions.    Once I hit the 1 or 2 month bans, by the time I'm allowed to post again?  Most of my points have dropped, time to be a dick again!  Obviously, I don't personally subscribe to this as can be seen by my moderation history of 5 points back in June of 20.  Did I earn those. yeah.  Did I learn from it, yeah.  You know what I also learned?  When someone gets suspended from this site, their avatar disappears.  That's the only time you can really kind of know when a moderation has led to a suspension/ban.  But I guess I took the observant feat when most didn't.   

Defending moderation, when it happens, its right.  Even when its happened against me, it was right.  

I'm gonna echo Stormknight here, this is all great because it's not just "This is what I don't like" but also "and here's why and what I'd like for it to be improved".

I wanna call out this statement as being particularly relevant:

Same token, these forums obviously have very intelligent people.  I have to believe that most of the time they are well intentioned.

Honestly, this forum has some of the most well thought out discussions I've seen, it's what enamoured it with me in the first place. As such, we want to nurture those discussions but, as also highlighted, when smart and passionate people clash, things can get heated. It's easy to moderate trolls and overt troublemakers, but drawing the line between impassioned debaters and bad actors can be a lot harder.

So I just wanna thank everyone contributing feedback and ideas here; every bit of constructive, actionable feedback is invaluable.

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

 Or, here is a concept. Dump the entire reporting mechanism. It is used as a weapon. Yes, I know that is absolutely true.

If people can't deal with words typed in the ether, and decide they have to run to mama instead of dealing with it themselves, with either a riposte, or the "ignore" button, they have no business spending time on a forum. The electrons and photons I am using to create this post are not going to travel through fibre and copper, then leap out of the computer screen at the other end and punch someone.

So I'm not going to address anything specifically about you, because this isn't about you.  This is about site feedback.  I'd encourage you to stay on topic.

The reporting function does work.  If someone posts something that is against site rules, then it should be acted upon.  There is no "Free Speech" here, its moderated discussion.  Telling people they have no business here isn't any more conductive to proper speech than moderating it based on the rules based on "Management".  That being said, this isn't open forum debates with zero rules.  There are certain levels of decorum that are absolutely required and when a post fails to meet that decorum, it is considered actionable.  Now, if I report something and it doesn't meet those qualifications of the moderation team, that's fine.   That being said, the system isn't flawed.  If people are being reported more often than not, it's because users truly feel that the content in those posts they are reporting actually breaks a site rule.

Quote from Vince_Snetterton>>

 Or, here is a concept. Dump the entire reporting mechanism. It is used as a weapon. Yes, I know that is absolutely true.

Anything can be a weapon. Words, fists, folding chairs, etc. That is not to say that it is impossible to improve, but that it has a point on the site and similar features have a point on other sites. 

ENWorld's version doesn't have the "choose a rule that's being broken" system that this site's Report Feature relies on. Instead, it just gives you a place to type in what site rules they're breaking, and/or a quote from their post to outline that. IME, and IMO, it works better than this site's version, but that may also be due to the fact that moderation is much more visible on ENWorld than on this site. 

Report systems are an essential part of practically every type of forum. Without them, moderators would have to read every post in every thread in order to hunt for posts that were breaking site rules, which is obviously impossible. Report features are essential, and if it's being abused, people should have some kind of punishment for that, and the system may need some revisions. However, I am sure you will understand if I don't take your word and just your word for this. 

If people can't deal with words typed in the ether, and decide they have to run to mama instead of dealing with it themselves, with either a riposte, or the "ignore" button, they have no business spending time on a forum. The electrons and photons I am using to create this post are not going to travel through fibre and copper, then leap out of the computer screen at the other end and punch someone.

Again, this is absolutely false, and is not at all the place to discuss this. 

Words can hurt people. Stop pretending they can't/don't, please. This is a fact, and it's blatantly incorrect and insensitive to suggest otherwise. 

This is the main purpose of having Ignore and Report features, because of this fact. Getting rid of either would lead to real harm to real people. 

I can echo several points raised here, but I'll deal with some very specific ones

• Quotes. These are a nightmare on this site. They are often used as a reply function, seeing as it's the only way to reasonably show which specific post you are replying to, but this just leads to massive quote chains. Editing them can be hit and miss, with formatting easily being messed up (see here for an example). This is exacerbated by how difficult post editing and formatting is from a mobile.
  • The simplest "fix" I can see to this is to automatically spoiler quotes within quotes. There would be better ways, some of which have been suggested above, but this should be a really simple fix to, at least, the massive quote chains which make a 1-line post take so long to scroll through. Even better would be to collapse all quotes by default, and allow them to be expanded one level at a time. Either of these should be very simple to implement with a tiny amount of CSS and JS.
• Moderation: I think the main thing here is that more visibility would make the rules and the system much easier to understand for everyone. I am often almost scared to post in certain topics, as I feel very strongly on them. I know that there is a positive that it makes me think carefully about what I am about to post, but not knowing where the line is makes me very nervous and frustrated. I cannot know whether I am "self-censoring" at the line, or half a mile before it, and can never be sure if my posts will creep over that invisible line. In addition, I will often see things which I feel should be considered way over the line, but nothing (visible) is done about them. I see posts which are deleted or redacted which seem perfectly reasonable, to me, while completely unreasonable (again, in my eyes) ones stay up and are repeated over and over. The lack of transparency makes consistently following the rules when discussing highly-charged subjects without feeling overly restricted nigh-on impossible.

• Ignore: I have not Ignored anyone and will not Ignore users unless their presence is about to drive me off the site. I agree that this should be an absolute last resort for dealing with bullying and the like, and should be a temporary measure (if it is bad enough that you've had to ignore someone, I would expect moderator action). It should also not be bypassed by quotes: If something is serious enough to Ignore, it should not show up at all in that person's content.

• Reporting: Yes, we need a way to report inappropriate content. Having moderated boards before, even where I was a very active user, I know the mods cannot read every post. The userbase must have a method to let the moderation team know if something should be looked at. That said, this is not a replacement for rebuttal, and the moderation team needs to allow somebody to respond to posts they think are inappropriate. As an extreme example I cannot tell you how frustrated I have felt on the BBC news comment threads when I have responded to an offensive comment, quoting part of it, only to have my own reply deleted because of the quote....

I do have one more suggestion of my own for your consideration: Instead of shutting down threads which get heated, introduce a way for the discussion to continue but without "polluting" the standard forums. This could be by way of a flag, or moving to a specific forum, and could even involve "splitting" the heated discussion from the original post. This would allow such discussions to continue, removing frustration that people feel when threads they feel strongly about are shut down, but keep the main forums "friendly".

I agree with the Quotes issue. It seems like it's impossible to edit them to remove excess quotes without ruining the quotes themselves! I think the best option is for every quote beyond the last to be in a spoiler, so they are there but aren't cluttering the threads up.

To throw my tuppence in for the notifications, the two things I would love to see which would make the site sooo much easier to navigate would be:

1: A scroll bar in the notifications dropdown, so I can scroll through them without having to open the notifications page.

2: Automatically be taken to the first unread post when you click a notification. I can't think of a single instance where I've only wanted to read the last post in a thread I'm watching, so if I could click notifications, scroll to a thread I'm watching and then click it to be taken to my first unread in that thread, I would be exceptionally happy! Even navigating the notifications page, I have to remember when I last viewed it to get the right post.

I can't say much on moderation as what little dealings I've seen here have been swift and effective, so it seems to work to me!

https://rpg.stackexchange.com

I only really use 2 resources, the one above, which is most certainly not a discussion forum (any post that remotely looks for opinion as opposed to facts or experience is generally closed down) but is a fantastic resource for RAW answers, and this one. I will say though that DnD beyond is auto my mind a playing resource with a forum attached, yes I enjoy the discussions and like the way they go generally, where people have gone too far I have found the moderators step in quickly, and most importantly not obviously. You don’t see sweeping posts from moderators interrupting conversation what I have seen are posts being removed quietly and quickly.

But the difficult point here is that this this is a resource that people pay for, that means banning someone outright needs to be done carefully and for very good reason as that person may well have paid for access/resources that DnD beyond are obliged to allow them to continue being able to use. 

Hey folks! This continues to be a great, insightful discussion. We're continuing to listen, read, and discuss, but one topic discussed stood out as something that not only do I 100% agree with, but that I have the power to fix without too much extra time added into my schedule: Improving our communication of news and 'stuff' on the forums, instead of just through our social media platforms. 

To this end, I've created a thread to get a little more focused feedback on what content from those socials you'd like to see shared here on the forums -- anything site news / new content related is automatically going to happen! I'd love your thoughts if you have a spare moment.

To your final point specifically, Scarloc: I don't believe a forum ban bars you from continuing to use your paid purchases on the website.  A forum ban simply stops you from creating new public forum posts - everything else on your account continues to work.  I may have suffered enough unfortunate naptimes to know that you can absolutely still access your sheets, your Digi-Dice(C), your books, and everything else.  You just can't post here.

Admittedly, that sucks in and of itself, and kinda tarnishes the purchases somewhat.  I fully agree that permanently banning someone should be undertaken with care and gravity.  It should never feel good to ban someone, but sometimes it will have to feel inevitable.