I help because it is in my nature to be helpful, and I enjoy doing so in this context. I am more tolerant here of people not searching for previous threads than I am elsewhere because I know from experience that the search function for these forums is broken and is essentially completely useless. I have resorted to using a straight google search with dndbeyond.com as a search term because of it; I don’t expect newbies to know to do that.
Once i learned enough here to help others, I’ve seen part of my role here to answer the questions I can so the moderators can focus on those questions I and others like me (including Sposta and naruhoodie) can’t, and to handle other mod duties.
I will say that I have seen a marked decrease in moderator activity in these forums over the last 6 months to a year. It used to be that if I and/or another “volunteer” spent time in a thread helping someone with an issue, but eventually ran out of ideas, a moderator would be right there with additional help. I had the impression back in those days that the mods were keeping an eye on such threads, but leaving it to us volunteers to sort out what we could. I had no problems with that approach; I thought it a wise use of resources. But more recently I’ve seen such threads linger when we volunteers reach the end of what we know/can do.
It seems like there are fewer moderators, and that in some cases their duties have expanded (to include Discord, twitch, and other venues). I have given serious consideration to applying to be a moderator. I’ve hesitated because I’ve worried that it would shift what is fun for me to what is work. And now I’m going to be preparing for a move and a new job, so it’s not something I want to take on at the moment.
All that said, Spideycloned, I agree with Davyd that if you are no longer inclined to help here, that’s fine.
Davyd, while your points about the various issues Spideycloned mentioned not relating directly to forum activity is quite correct, I will also say that many of Spideycloned’s concerns are ones I share. In particular, I feel like there is less transparency than there used to be, that messaging is often quite poor and often belated. None of this is your fault—You are the moderator I see most often in the forum threads I follow, and I very much appreciate your tone and the work you put in. Rather, I’m raising this here to you in the hopes that you will pass on to those who do have the power to address this that several of us stalwart volunteers are seeing a shift and are concerned about it. Even though many of those issues aren’t directly related to the forums themselves, they do have an affect on how many of us feel about DDB as a whole, which in turn influences how willing/eager/interested we are in helping out in the forums.
I will say that those 'above' me are aware of the communities current feelings on the communication, and I can assure you that things are not the way they are out of apathy or malice. I can't speak for the specifics of why communication is at the level it is, that's not my place. But I can assure you that the team tries to provide answers and information as much as they can.
I would recommend that the dev updates are likely the best place to try and get your questions answered, if they can be answered. The devs don't spend as much time on the forums as the moderation team (they don't have the time) and so questions here are easily missed. I know that's less than helpful for those of you that don't/can't watch the stream, but it's honestly the best place.
I will speak for my own personal experiences interacting with the community; since becoming a moderator I have noticed an increasing hostility towards whatever I post, which makes me second guess whether or not I should post. Users tend to be quicker to engage negatively with what I say than before I got the orange user name, and even then it's been a trend that's grown over the last year or so. As much as I want to engage in rules debates and discussions about the game and generally participate in the community, I feel like it's no longer my place to. This is a shame because I love participating in this community, but I just don't feel as welcome to due to being treated so differently. While I don't speak for any of the other moderators or staff, I wouldn't be surprised if they felt the same. We have a role in the community that helps keep users safe and keeps conversations ticking over, and we try and help as much as possible with threads where users are having difficulties. But beyond that, there is a drought of welcomeness to just simply participate, which is saddening.
I will say that those 'above' me are aware of the communities current feelings on the communication, and I can assure you that things are not the way they are out of apathy or malice. I can't speak for the specifics of why communication is at the level it is, that's not my place. But I can assure you that the team tries to provide answers and information as much as they can.
I would recommend that the dev updates are likely the best place to try and get your questions answered, if they can be answered. The devs don't spend as much time on the forums as the moderation team (they don't have the time) and so questions here are easily missed. I know that's less than helpful for those of you that don't/can't watch the stream, but it's honestly the best place.
I will speak for my own personal experiences interacting with the community; since becoming a moderator I have noticed an increasing hostility towards whatever I post, which makes me second guess whether or not I should post. Users tend to be quicker to engage negatively with what I say than before I got the orange user name, and even then it's been a trend that's grown over the last year or so. As much as I want to engage in rules debates and discussions about the game and generally participate in the community, I feel like it's no longer my place to. This is a shame because I love participating in this community, but I just don't feel as welcome to due to being treated so differently. While I don't speak for any of the other moderators or staff, I wouldn't be surprised if they felt the same. We have a role in the community that helps keep users safe and keeps conversations ticking over, and we try and help as much as possible with threads where users are having difficulties. But beyond that, there is a drought of welcomeness to just simply participate, which is saddening.
I applaud all you do Davyid as to be honest you and the other moderators have become the face of DDB both here and on three Discord.
Your responses are almost always positive and you try to be as helpful as you can...or sometimes I think allowed to be.
I think the hostility might come from the fact people are frustrated and do not get good communication outside the typical answers and want new insights and information.
The fact that we interact mostly with mods instead of staff honestly doesn't help.
When I started to use this site staff were very engaged and active. The community leader in particular was very engaged and did a lot to share staff communications.
I no longer feel that is the case and objectively you can see that staff rarely if ever post...I realize that they are busy but community engagement and support is still a very important part of this product... At least to me.
If the Dev Talks are so important to that I would suggest that they get posted to the forum like they used to and an announcement on the discord happen like it used to....
My 2 cents on that however is that people seemingly want more back and forth dialogue and less being talked at... But that's just my guess based on the community response.
You do your best and honestly it you had to step down DDB would be in trouble for sure as you devote a great deal of time for free to do what you do.... But at times I think they may be leaning on that too hard.
With regards to the dev updates being put on the forums as transcripts, it's so bandwidth intensive that it very easily slips in terms of priorities. It's unfortunate and I agree 100% it's an accessibility issue for a lot of people. It gets brought up a lot within discussions as to finding a better pipeline, but a solution hasn't been found yet. I know that's grossly unsatisfying, but I'm afraid it's the case.
I will pass on all this feedback, it's a shame this thread had to start with the topic of calls for the community to cease helping each other, because the feedback from the root cause of that is invaluable. I will be passing this all along, along with some of my own suggestions, such as things like staff AMA type threads, getting the dev update transcripts back up and a stable pipeline for that, etc.
Also Optimus, I appreciate the kind words. I know we've personally butted heads in the past, which honestly makes what you say stand out even more. I don't personally feel D&D Beyond leans on me too hard, that's 100% a me 'problem'. This community, and the discord community, are the first places I've ever in my decades of internet use felt like my communities and so by putting in the time I do, I feel like I'm giving back. I see a lot of people like Sposta, Arwen, Midnightplat, Cybermind, and Naruhoodie (to name a minuscule fraction) doing the same.
I would ask anyone reading this thread to please keep helping the community out where you can, answering questions and engaging in topics. But don't ever feel obliged to. You don't have to answer a question, you can just read the funny stories and silly rules arguments and go about your day. That's still a positive participation in this community; just by being here.
Davyd, I am sorry that attitudes and manner of speech toward you has changed since you became a moderator. That reality had not occurred to me, but once you raised it, I have to admit it should have. I am in a very different line of work, but one in which peers are routinely appointed to “supervisor” tasks for a period of time, and a number of them have commented on a similar phenomenon: colleagues responses and attitudes toward them changed as soon as their position changed, as if they they had somehow changed as a person (even become the “enemy”). When that happens it is always regrettable.
I’m glad that “higher ups” (for lack of a better term) are aware of our concerns. I am confident the shift is not out of malice. I’m aware that part of the shift is due to Adam leaving and to his responsibilities being divided out differently. Adam was a regular (though not daily) presence in the forums, and had an incredible ability to be non reactive in the face of criticism, patient, and transparent about missteps. That combination is hard to find. As I pondered today, I also realized that it goes beyond a personality issue, it also has to do with the fact that the responsibilities that were part of the position Adam held were parceled out differently—something that no doubt needed to happen as DDB grew. It does seem like in the process, messaging/communication has lost out, or at least has changed enough that those of us used to the old ways are struggling. But I am hopeful that the powers that be are aware it’s an issue and are looking for solutions, given what you posted. I know adaptation and change is hard, and often involves a lot of trial and error.
It has been very helpful for me to realize as I’ve participated in this thread that part of what I am experiencing are growing/adapting pains. In my line of work, we are having to figure out new/different ways of doing things and making major changes to how things are structured. That is hard, often disturbs the regulars/old guard, and is an imperfect process. If I want patience from my “constiuents” as we make our way through that in my work, I should offer than same patience to DDB and other outfits who are experiencing similar things. I will endeavor so to do.
And thanks, Davyd, for listening, even if there’s nothing you can do directly to change the things that have me troubled.
With regards to the dev updates being put on the forums as transcripts, it's so bandwidth intensive that it very easily slips in terms of priorities. It's unfortunate and I agree 100% it's an accessibility issue for a lot of people. It gets brought up a lot within discussions as to finding a better pipeline, but a solution hasn't been found yet. I know that's grossly unsatisfying, but I'm afraid it's the case.
I will pass on all this feedback, it's a shame this thread had to start with the topic of calls for the community to cease helping each other, because the feedback from the root cause of that is invaluable. I will be passing this all along, along with some of my own suggestions, such as things like staff AMA type threads, getting the dev update transcripts back up and a stable pipeline for that, etc.
Also Optimus, I appreciate the kind words. I know we've personally butted heads in the past, which honestly makes what you say stand out even more. I don't personally feel D&D Beyond leans on me too hard, that's 100% a me 'problem'. This community, and the discord community, are the first places I've ever in my decades of internet use felt like my communities and so by putting in the time I do, I feel like I'm giving back. I see a lot of people like Sposta, Arwen, Midnightplat, Cybermind, and Naruhoodie (to name a minuscule fraction) doing the same.
I would ask anyone reading this thread to please keep helping the community out where you can, answering questions and engaging in topics. But don't ever feel obliged to. You don't have to answer a question, you can just read the funny stories and silly rules arguments and go about your day. That's still a positive participation in this community; just by being here.
And TBH I didn't think you were doing it for any other reason than you care about the community and its well-being which is highly admirable. I am glad you still feel that way despite the hostility...which I do think could use some work on all our parts.
Tensions rise and fall and with that so does our ability to handle criticism, frustration, and disappointment. Thanks for providing your thoughts because, as always, they give good perspective and insight.
If there's one thing I could impress upon the community, it would be that D&D Beyond is always listening, even if we're not saying anything. Part of this is because 90% of the time there is nothing to say other than "We can't provide any answers at this time". And honestly, there's a line at which that goes from 'DDB at least acknowledging us' to 'DDB repeating the same line over and over on repeat'.
But we do listen. The mods pass on the feedback, complaints, and criticism from the forums and discord. We talk about and spitball what could be done so there's no shortage of suggestions and ideas floating around. (For some reason, having the site flash and sound an alarm every time a commit to the master branch was made was shut down very quickly, lol).
Also, I'd like to stress I didn't share my personal experiences in order to shame the community or illicit sympathy (but I do appreciate the kind words being shared). It was more to highlight the complexities of interacting with a community as part of a company and how that relationship can change things. It can be difficult when people see you as the 'face' of those that hold all the answers (or you think they do/should) and you're not as forthcoming as they'd hope. It's a weird dynamic, especially when you're used to being on the other side of things.
I wouldn't worry about it. There are several things I use at work that are supported mostly by a community and not the business who provides the tools. Web accessibility toolset, several asset management tools, integration and database services—all requiring license to use and all supported largely by the community.
Some people will not be happy until their imagined ideal situation is realized even if the situation is already rather ideal and works just fine across many disciplines.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I’m glad this has become a productive conversation! one other suggestion I have in terms of visibility/communication: Not too long ago, for a brief period of time, when bugs were reported on the forums, a mod or staff person would routinely jump in and say something like “thank you, this has been passed on.” That still happens sometimes, but but not as regularly, and there have been a number of threads recently where it took quite a while—after it was obvious it was a bug and not user error—before that happened, resulting in lots of comments of “the devs are ignoring us” until someone chimed in. I don’t know if that’s due to mods feeling like a broken record, due to mods being stretched too thin, or something else. If there’s a way to get back to quickly and consistently nothing that the bug/issue has been logged, this would at the very least give those of us who are forum regulars the ability to point to those posts to remind folks it’s a known issue, that’s been noted.
I'm not taking sides and I understand and sympathise with both sides. I don't have much to contribute, but I just wanted to vonfirm something Davyd said. I've been perusing the threads, and he has taken a disproportionate amount of flak gor just contributing, sometimes explicitly because he's a moderator. That sucks, and I think we can empathise. Even I've come to the decision to basically ignore what one user posts because I don't feel positive in my interactions with them (not because we disagree, but in how they approach it). So, I can see why that kind of thing, especially when you get a disproportionate amount of it merely for doing your job (and notmwhat you're paid for, either) and having to deal with it indefinitely, may be pushing them away.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is any easy fix. I rarely recognised the usernames, so it's not like us resolving to be nice is the whole answer - there will be drive-bys (whether by people who rarely post or are mostly active on other parts of the site), and they're probably the bulk of the problem.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
(For some reason, having the site flash and sound an alarm every time a commit to the master branch was made was shut down very quickly, lol).
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. And then you can publish all the commit messages to the forums. Then all the backseat developers here can complain about not seeing the actual code diffs...
I’m glad this has become a productive conversation! one other suggestion I have in terms of visibility/communication: Not too long ago, for a brief period of time, when bugs were reported on the forums, a mod or staff person would routinely jump in and say something like “thank you, this has been passed on.” That still happens sometimes, but but not as regularly, and there have been a number of threads recently where it took quite a while—after it was obvious it was a bug and not user error—before that happened, resulting in lots of comments of “the devs are ignoring us” until someone chimed in. I don’t know if that’s due to mods feeling like a broken record, due to mods being stretched too thin, or something else. If there’s a way to get back to quickly and consistently nothing that the bug/issue has been logged, this would at the very least give those of us who are forum regulars the ability to point to those posts to remind folks it’s a known issue, that’s been noted.
100% on the flagging bugs that have been passed along. I can assure you these bugs are being passed along, just there's not always mention as such in the threads. I will raise this as an area for improvement because it is a small thing that has a big impact on how the community feels.
On another platform I was a long time poster who became a mod and I can say that their was a change in how I posted and tried to treat others...and how others treated me. I often found people would think being a mod was fun, but I can say that was not often my experience and often toward the end I asked myself why am I doing this. Being a mod is not easy and often people do not see the hard things that go on behind the scenes.
Having said that in the beginning of posting on a game companies forums, I was looking for answers to questions about rules, printing errors and where stuff was hidden in the text of the game. I myself learned a lot about the game (good and bad) by answering others questions and hearing their thoughts on various issues.
I also learned being a mod that transition times can be tough and like in most things transparent two way communication is very important. Keeping people informed of the good as well as the bad things is part of business and often pays off more in the long run then hiding issues and problems.
P.S. I myself can say that if a company believes in crowed sourcing their product they should state so boldly and clearly so everyone knows what is going on, i.e. transparency.
I’m glad this has become a productive conversation! one other suggestion I have in terms of visibility/communication: Not too long ago, for a brief period of time, when bugs were reported on the forums, a mod or staff person would routinely jump in and say something like “thank you, this has been passed on.” That still happens sometimes, but but not as regularly, and there have been a number of threads recently where it took quite a while—after it was obvious it was a bug and not user error—before that happened, resulting in lots of comments of “the devs are ignoring us” until someone chimed in. I don’t know if that’s due to mods feeling like a broken record, due to mods being stretched too thin, or something else. If there’s a way to get back to quickly and consistently nothing that the bug/issue has been logged, this would at the very least give those of us who are forum regulars the ability to point to those posts to remind folks it’s a known issue, that’s been noted.
100% on the flagging bugs that have been passed along. I can assure you these bugs are being passed along, just there's not always mention as such in the threads. I will raise this as an area for improvement because it is a small thing that has a big impact on how the community feels.
it would also be useful to have visibility somewhere of all the known open bugs if possible. I work as a QA in a tech company and every release as part of the release notes I detail all the known bugs that have not yet been resolved. Some of these bugs are carried over from the last release things that for various reasons we have not yet fixed, others are new as part of this release, or identified by customers and not yet fixed.
This doesn't always prevent duplicate issues being raised by customers, but it can at least mitigate some noise and lets customers now these things are on our radar, even if we have not assigned dates to these bugs.
I’m glad this has become a productive conversation! one other suggestion I have in terms of visibility/communication: Not too long ago, for a brief period of time, when bugs were reported on the forums, a mod or staff person would routinely jump in and say something like “thank you, this has been passed on.” That still happens sometimes, but but not as regularly, and there have been a number of threads recently where it took quite a while—after it was obvious it was a bug and not user error—before that happened, resulting in lots of comments of “the devs are ignoring us” until someone chimed in. I don’t know if that’s due to mods feeling like a broken record, due to mods being stretched too thin, or something else. If there’s a way to get back to quickly and consistently nothing that the bug/issue has been logged, this would at the very least give those of us who are forum regulars the ability to point to those posts to remind folks it’s a known issue, that’s been noted.
100% on the flagging bugs that have been passed along. I can assure you these bugs are being passed along, just there's not always mention as such in the threads. I will raise this as an area for improvement because it is a small thing that has a big impact on how the community feels.
it would also be useful to have visibility somewhere of all the known open bugs if possible. I work as a QA in a tech company and every release as part of the release notes I detail all the known bugs that have not yet been resolved. Some of these bugs are carried over from the last release things that for various reasons we have not yet fixed, others are new as part of this release, or identified by customers and not yet fixed.
This doesn't always prevent duplicate issues being raised by customers, but it can at least mitigate some noise and lets customers now these things are on our radar, even if we have not assigned dates to these bugs.
I think surfacing bugs to the community might be a bit out of scope right now as that involves all sorts of silo'ing and compartmentalisation and permissions nonsense which, while possible, tends to be a lot of overhead. However, I will pass it along.
I’m glad this has become a productive conversation! one other suggestion I have in terms of visibility/communication: Not too long ago, for a brief period of time, when bugs were reported on the forums, a mod or staff person would routinely jump in and say something like “thank you, this has been passed on.” That still happens sometimes, but but not as regularly, and there have been a number of threads recently where it took quite a while—after it was obvious it was a bug and not user error—before that happened, resulting in lots of comments of “the devs are ignoring us” until someone chimed in. I don’t know if that’s due to mods feeling like a broken record, due to mods being stretched too thin, or something else. If there’s a way to get back to quickly and consistently nothing that the bug/issue has been logged, this would at the very least give those of us who are forum regulars the ability to point to those posts to remind folks it’s a known issue, that’s been noted.
100% on the flagging bugs that have been passed along. I can assure you these bugs are being passed along, just there's not always mention as such in the threads. I will raise this as an area for improvement because it is a small thing that has a big impact on how the community feels.
it would also be useful to have visibility somewhere of all the known open bugs if possible. I work as a QA in a tech company and every release as part of the release notes I detail all the known bugs that have not yet been resolved. Some of these bugs are carried over from the last release things that for various reasons we have not yet fixed, others are new as part of this release, or identified by customers and not yet fixed.
This doesn't always prevent duplicate issues being raised by customers, but it can at least mitigate some noise and lets customers now these things are on our radar, even if we have not assigned dates to these bugs.
I think surfacing bugs to the community might be a bit out of scope right now as that involves all sorts of silo'ing and compartmentalisation and permissions nonsense which, while possible, tends to be a lot of overhead. However, I will pass it along.
It may well be an overhead, just a suggestion, although there should be release notes for each release and if the team are using jira you can pull this info out easily enough. But just a suggestion.
While I agree with others and disapprove of how Beyond handles communication lately, I understand the lack of enthusiam in dealing with customers and I do not completely blame them. I have seen how horrible customers can be in real life, and I have also had to personally deal with a few of them directly as part of my job from time to time, and it is super draining when you are unlucky and get that one customer that just makes you want to pull your hair out. At least in real life when rude customers leave, they leave; online on the forums, those rude customer leaves behind a negative prescence with their posts, and that just keeps attracting future rude customers and they all keep repeating the same thing over and over again.
At the end of the day, Beyond still needs to bring back better communication and more transparency though. I think having a dedicated PR spokesperson focused on engaging with the community might help, like how Adam, Lauren, and Todd used to do it, but that is a lot easier said than done.
I guess the issue is finances. Can they afford to take on what would essentially be a full time staff member to maintain that communication? I suspect that the reason why stuff isn't getting done and so forth is because they aren't willing/able to spend the money on hiring a larger workforce, so they're unable to get the work done. I don't think they have the budget to even maintain what they should be doing, much less pay someone to be on the forums etc doing announcements, taking feedback, and so forth.
Now, the million dollar question is whether that's because that's because cash flow makes it impossible to increase funding or if there is just a stingy guy somewhere wanting that money to be on the profit side of ledger to make themselves look better. I don't know, nor am I sure if we could know.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I know this is a minor thing but a site I was on mods had a "mod hat" "fan hat" that people took fairly seriously. When the mod hat post was on they were being mods and trying to keep things civil. But when their fan hat was on they were just another user and could discuss and be argued and agreed with as a user.
I just wanted to chime in with my own thoughts on the various conversations going on in this thread. I should also note that I'm not trying to talk from a position of authority, but rather wanting to present my own views - apologies in advance if they end up coming across as overly defensive or evasive.
MotM: As Joe mentioned on the dev update last week, WotC had requested to take the lead with communicating for Monsters of the Multiverse - but in case it needed to be stated again, we aren't replacing your existing content with the content found in Monsters of the Multiverse. Please know, that it wasn't our intention to stress folks out about whether they would have their content replaced or not or otherwise.
Communication: This is an interesting one since it's one that's actively discussed - though its 100% something that has always been complained about since the site's inception. Don't believe me? Here's a post from before I even became a moderator (or staff member) of me complaining about the lack of communication and Badeye responding in kind. :D
I think the bigger issue is that many folks conflate communication with meaningful communication. Of course, we can go through and respond to every post talking about a missing feature, but, as many folks have also acknowledged in this thread, replying to every post stating that we don't give timelines or ETAs, or variation of that phrase isn't really helpful and isn't really what people are looking for. While I acknowledge that there are instances where we could have been doing more to communicate, I also think there are times where over-communicating can cause more problems than not communicating at all. There's a reason why "Valve Time/Blizz Time" are memes throughout gaming communities - as they very much provide examples where they communicate when something is coming, then miss that expectation and cause their community to go into an uproar ("giff diretide" is a great example if there are any fellow Dota 2 fans).
To provide a more recent (and hopefully relevant example), our team (to clarify, I'm on the team that enters most of the official content that you see here on DDB) was very much ready to announce a cool project I had been spearheading before the holidays. Then, everything changed when the massive errata attacked was released. Suffice it to say, this unfortunately pushed those plans back by quite a bit, which were further delayed due to the holidays, and then delayed again coming into the New Year due to other issues unexpectedly popping up as well as other priorities taking precedent. Had we announced it when we intended to (or ahead of time), I imagine many folks would be even more frustrated by us announcing it, then needing to go radio silent on it as other projects took priority (or the ever famous "we don't give ETAs"), and reiterating that until it was ready for release.
To circle back to what I was originally saying - I don't disagree with the notion that we could be doing better to communicate with folks. I think that's always going to be an applicable and relevant criticism that can be worked on. That being said, I would also ask that folks consider that when we don't communicate, it isn't out of malice or due to wanting to hide something from the community - but rather something that we aren't able to discuss at the time, something doesn't necessarily have a definitive answer yet, or something that's better off being communicated when the time is right.
Staff Engagement: I must re-iterate here, that this is all of my own thoughts - I don't presume to speak about the other members of the staff. That being said, I think Davyd nailed the issue I've had since becoming a moderator on the forums (which was only amplified when I got the red borders), that having the Orange/Red name shines a spotlight on you - for better or for worse. Everything you say holds a much stronger weight due to the extra level of distinction. There was an instance where I had made an offhanded comment on the forums here that was then be cited on a reddit thread like two months later (which was ridiculously surreal). While I'm typically a lurker anyway, there have been times where I want to chime in to say something but abstain from doing so because I'm aware that the red border/orange sword is srs biz and is more likely to shut down conversation rather than helping facilitate it.
I apologize for this giant wall of text, but the conversation in this thread (especially with how respectful everyone's been) coupled with the very valid criticisms made me self-reflective and I wanted to reply in kind with my thoughts. It's certainly no stretch of the imagination that a large part of what makes DDB successful is our community - from offering feedback (no matter how harsh), to engaging with each other, to generally being a swell bunch of folks.
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I help because it is in my nature to be helpful, and I enjoy doing so in this context. I am more tolerant here of people not searching for previous threads than I am elsewhere because I know from experience that the search function for these forums is broken and is essentially completely useless. I have resorted to using a straight google search with dndbeyond.com as a search term because of it; I don’t expect newbies to know to do that.
Once i learned enough here to help others, I’ve seen part of my role here to answer the questions I can so the moderators can focus on those questions I and others like me (including Sposta and naruhoodie) can’t, and to handle other mod duties.
I will say that I have seen a marked decrease in moderator activity in these forums over the last 6 months to a year. It used to be that if I and/or another “volunteer” spent time in a thread helping someone with an issue, but eventually ran out of ideas, a moderator would be right there with additional help. I had the impression back in those days that the mods were keeping an eye on such threads, but leaving it to us volunteers to sort out what we could. I had no problems with that approach; I thought it a wise use of resources. But more recently I’ve seen such threads linger when we volunteers reach the end of what we know/can do.
It seems like there are fewer moderators, and that in some cases their duties have expanded (to include Discord, twitch, and other venues). I have given serious consideration to applying to be a moderator. I’ve hesitated because I’ve worried that it would shift what is fun for me to what is work. And now I’m going to be preparing for a move and a new job, so it’s not something I want to take on at the moment.
All that said, Spideycloned, I agree with Davyd that if you are no longer inclined to help here, that’s fine.
Davyd, while your points about the various issues Spideycloned mentioned not relating directly to forum activity is quite correct, I will also say that many of Spideycloned’s concerns are ones I share. In particular, I feel like there is less transparency than there used to be, that messaging is often quite poor and often belated. None of this is your fault—You are the moderator I see most often in the forum threads I follow, and I very much appreciate your tone and the work you put in. Rather, I’m raising this here to you in the hopes that you will pass on to those who do have the power to address this that several of us stalwart volunteers are seeing a shift and are concerned about it. Even though many of those issues aren’t directly related to the forums themselves, they do have an affect on how many of us feel about DDB as a whole, which in turn influences how willing/eager/interested we are in helping out in the forums.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
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I will say that those 'above' me are aware of the communities current feelings on the communication, and I can assure you that things are not the way they are out of apathy or malice. I can't speak for the specifics of why communication is at the level it is, that's not my place. But I can assure you that the team tries to provide answers and information as much as they can.
I would recommend that the dev updates are likely the best place to try and get your questions answered, if they can be answered. The devs don't spend as much time on the forums as the moderation team (they don't have the time) and so questions here are easily missed. I know that's less than helpful for those of you that don't/can't watch the stream, but it's honestly the best place.
I will speak for my own personal experiences interacting with the community; since becoming a moderator I have noticed an increasing hostility towards whatever I post, which makes me second guess whether or not I should post. Users tend to be quicker to engage negatively with what I say than before I got the orange user name, and even then it's been a trend that's grown over the last year or so. As much as I want to engage in rules debates and discussions about the game and generally participate in the community, I feel like it's no longer my place to. This is a shame because I love participating in this community, but I just don't feel as welcome to due to being treated so differently. While I don't speak for any of the other moderators or staff, I wouldn't be surprised if they felt the same. We have a role in the community that helps keep users safe and keeps conversations ticking over, and we try and help as much as possible with threads where users are having difficulties. But beyond that, there is a drought of welcomeness to just simply participate, which is saddening.
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I applaud all you do Davyid as to be honest you and the other moderators have become the face of DDB both here and on three Discord.
Your responses are almost always positive and you try to be as helpful as you can...or sometimes I think allowed to be.
I think the hostility might come from the fact people are frustrated and do not get good communication outside the typical answers and want new insights and information.
The fact that we interact mostly with mods instead of staff honestly doesn't help.
When I started to use this site staff were very engaged and active. The community leader in particular was very engaged and did a lot to share staff communications.
I no longer feel that is the case and objectively you can see that staff rarely if ever post...I realize that they are busy but community engagement and support is still a very important part of this product... At least to me.
If the Dev Talks are so important to that I would suggest that they get posted to the forum like they used to and an announcement on the discord happen like it used to....
My 2 cents on that however is that people seemingly want more back and forth dialogue and less being talked at... But that's just my guess based on the community response.
You do your best and honestly it you had to step down DDB would be in trouble for sure as you devote a great deal of time for free to do what you do.... But at times I think they may be leaning on that too hard.
With regards to the dev updates being put on the forums as transcripts, it's so bandwidth intensive that it very easily slips in terms of priorities. It's unfortunate and I agree 100% it's an accessibility issue for a lot of people. It gets brought up a lot within discussions as to finding a better pipeline, but a solution hasn't been found yet. I know that's grossly unsatisfying, but I'm afraid it's the case.
I will pass on all this feedback, it's a shame this thread had to start with the topic of calls for the community to cease helping each other, because the feedback from the root cause of that is invaluable. I will be passing this all along, along with some of my own suggestions, such as things like staff AMA type threads, getting the dev update transcripts back up and a stable pipeline for that, etc.
Also Optimus, I appreciate the kind words. I know we've personally butted heads in the past, which honestly makes what you say stand out even more. I don't personally feel D&D Beyond leans on me too hard, that's 100% a me 'problem'. This community, and the discord community, are the first places I've ever in my decades of internet use felt like my communities and so by putting in the time I do, I feel like I'm giving back. I see a lot of people like Sposta, Arwen, Midnightplat, Cybermind, and Naruhoodie (to name a minuscule fraction) doing the same.
I would ask anyone reading this thread to please keep helping the community out where you can, answering questions and engaging in topics. But don't ever feel obliged to. You don't have to answer a question, you can just read the funny stories and silly rules arguments and go about your day. That's still a positive participation in this community; just by being here.
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Davyd, I am sorry that attitudes and manner of speech toward you has changed since you became a moderator. That reality had not occurred to me, but once you raised it, I have to admit it should have. I am in a very different line of work, but one in which peers are routinely appointed to “supervisor” tasks for a period of time, and a number of them have commented on a similar phenomenon: colleagues responses and attitudes toward them changed as soon as their position changed, as if they they had somehow changed as a person (even become the “enemy”). When that happens it is always regrettable.
I’m glad that “higher ups” (for lack of a better term) are aware of our concerns. I am confident the shift is not out of malice. I’m aware that part of the shift is due to Adam leaving and to his responsibilities being divided out differently. Adam was a regular (though not daily) presence in the forums, and had an incredible ability to be non reactive in the face of criticism, patient, and transparent about missteps. That combination is hard to find. As I pondered today, I also realized that it goes beyond a personality issue, it also has to do with the fact that the responsibilities that were part of the position Adam held were parceled out differently—something that no doubt needed to happen as DDB grew. It does seem like in the process, messaging/communication has lost out, or at least has changed enough that those of us used to the old ways are struggling. But I am hopeful that the powers that be are aware it’s an issue and are looking for solutions, given what you posted. I know adaptation and change is hard, and often involves a lot of trial and error.
It has been very helpful for me to realize as I’ve participated in this thread that part of what I am experiencing are growing/adapting pains. In my line of work, we are having to figure out new/different ways of doing things and making major changes to how things are structured. That is hard, often disturbs the regulars/old guard, and is an imperfect process. If I want patience from my “constiuents” as we make our way through that in my work, I should offer than same patience to DDB and other outfits who are experiencing similar things. I will endeavor so to do.
And thanks, Davyd, for listening, even if there’s nothing you can do directly to change the things that have me troubled.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
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And TBH I didn't think you were doing it for any other reason than you care about the community and its well-being which is highly admirable. I am glad you still feel that way despite the hostility...which I do think could use some work on all our parts.
Tensions rise and fall and with that so does our ability to handle criticism, frustration, and disappointment. Thanks for providing your thoughts because, as always, they give good perspective and insight.
If there's one thing I could impress upon the community, it would be that D&D Beyond is always listening, even if we're not saying anything. Part of this is because 90% of the time there is nothing to say other than "We can't provide any answers at this time". And honestly, there's a line at which that goes from 'DDB at least acknowledging us' to 'DDB repeating the same line over and over on repeat'.
But we do listen. The mods pass on the feedback, complaints, and criticism from the forums and discord. We talk about and spitball what could be done so there's no shortage of suggestions and ideas floating around. (For some reason, having the site flash and sound an alarm every time a commit to the master branch was made was shut down very quickly, lol).
Also, I'd like to stress I didn't share my personal experiences in order to shame the community or illicit sympathy (but I do appreciate the kind words being shared). It was more to highlight the complexities of interacting with a community as part of a company and how that relationship can change things. It can be difficult when people see you as the 'face' of those that hold all the answers (or you think they do/should) and you're not as forthcoming as they'd hope. It's a weird dynamic, especially when you're used to being on the other side of things.
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I wouldn't worry about it. There are several things I use at work that are supported mostly by a community and not the business who provides the tools. Web accessibility toolset, several asset management tools, integration and database services—all requiring license to use and all supported largely by the community.
Some people will not be happy until their imagined ideal situation is realized even if the situation is already rather ideal and works just fine across many disciplines.
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I’m glad this has become a productive conversation! one other suggestion I have in terms of visibility/communication: Not too long ago, for a brief period of time, when bugs were reported on the forums, a mod or staff person would routinely jump in and say something like “thank you, this has been passed on.” That still happens sometimes, but but not as regularly, and there have been a number of threads recently where it took quite a while—after it was obvious it was a bug and not user error—before that happened, resulting in lots of comments of “the devs are ignoring us” until someone chimed in. I don’t know if that’s due to mods feeling like a broken record, due to mods being stretched too thin, or something else. If there’s a way to get back to quickly and consistently nothing that the bug/issue has been logged, this would at the very least give those of us who are forum regulars the ability to point to those posts to remind folks it’s a known issue, that’s been noted.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
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I'm not taking sides and I understand and sympathise with both sides. I don't have much to contribute, but I just wanted to vonfirm something Davyd said. I've been perusing the threads, and he has taken a disproportionate amount of flak gor just contributing, sometimes explicitly because he's a moderator. That sucks, and I think we can empathise. Even I've come to the decision to basically ignore what one user posts because I don't feel positive in my interactions with them (not because we disagree, but in how they approach it). So, I can see why that kind of thing, especially when you get a disproportionate amount of it merely for doing your job (and notmwhat you're paid for, either) and having to deal with it indefinitely, may be pushing them away.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is any easy fix. I rarely recognised the usernames, so it's not like us resolving to be nice is the whole answer - there will be drive-bys (whether by people who rarely post or are mostly active on other parts of the site), and they're probably the bulk of the problem.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. And then you can publish all the commit messages to the forums. Then all the backseat developers here can complain about not seeing the actual code diffs...
(no, do not do that :)
100% on the flagging bugs that have been passed along. I can assure you these bugs are being passed along, just there's not always mention as such in the threads. I will raise this as an area for improvement because it is a small thing that has a big impact on how the community feels.
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On another platform I was a long time poster who became a mod and I can say that their was a change in how I posted and tried to treat others...and how others treated me. I often found people would think being a mod was fun, but I can say that was not often my experience and often toward the end I asked myself why am I doing this. Being a mod is not easy and often people do not see the hard things that go on behind the scenes.
Having said that in the beginning of posting on a game companies forums, I was looking for answers to questions about rules, printing errors and where stuff was hidden in the text of the game. I myself learned a lot about the game (good and bad) by answering others questions and hearing their thoughts on various issues.
I also learned being a mod that transition times can be tough and like in most things transparent two way communication is very important. Keeping people informed of the good as well as the bad things is part of business and often pays off more in the long run then hiding issues and problems.
P.S. I myself can say that if a company believes in crowed sourcing their product they should state so boldly and clearly so everyone knows what is going on, i.e. transparency.
it would also be useful to have visibility somewhere of all the known open bugs if possible. I work as a QA in a tech company and every release as part of the release notes I detail all the known bugs that have not yet been resolved. Some of these bugs are carried over from the last release things that for various reasons we have not yet fixed, others are new as part of this release, or identified by customers and not yet fixed.
This doesn't always prevent duplicate issues being raised by customers, but it can at least mitigate some noise and lets customers now these things are on our radar, even if we have not assigned dates to these bugs.
I think surfacing bugs to the community might be a bit out of scope right now as that involves all sorts of silo'ing and compartmentalisation and permissions nonsense which, while possible, tends to be a lot of overhead. However, I will pass it along.
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It may well be an overhead, just a suggestion, although there should be release notes for each release and if the team are using jira you can pull this info out easily enough. But just a suggestion.
While I agree with others and disapprove of how Beyond handles communication lately, I understand the lack of enthusiam in dealing with customers and I do not completely blame them. I have seen how horrible customers can be in real life, and I have also had to personally deal with a few of them directly as part of my job from time to time, and it is super draining when you are unlucky and get that one customer that just makes you want to pull your hair out. At least in real life when rude customers leave, they leave; online on the forums, those rude customer leaves behind a negative prescence with their posts, and that just keeps attracting future rude customers and they all keep repeating the same thing over and over again.
At the end of the day, Beyond still needs to bring back better communication and more transparency though. I think having a dedicated PR spokesperson focused on engaging with the community might help, like how Adam, Lauren, and Todd used to do it, but that is a lot easier said than done.
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I guess the issue is finances. Can they afford to take on what would essentially be a full time staff member to maintain that communication? I suspect that the reason why stuff isn't getting done and so forth is because they aren't willing/able to spend the money on hiring a larger workforce, so they're unable to get the work done. I don't think they have the budget to even maintain what they should be doing, much less pay someone to be on the forums etc doing announcements, taking feedback, and so forth.
Now, the million dollar question is whether that's because that's because cash flow makes it impossible to increase funding or if there is just a stingy guy somewhere wanting that money to be on the profit side of ledger to make themselves look better. I don't know, nor am I sure if we could know.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I know this is a minor thing but a site I was on mods had a "mod hat" "fan hat" that people took fairly seriously. When the mod hat post was on they were being mods and trying to keep things civil. But when their fan hat was on they were just another user and could discuss and be argued and agreed with as a user.
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D&D Beyond StaffHi folks!
I just wanted to chime in with my own thoughts on the various conversations going on in this thread. I should also note that I'm not trying to talk from a position of authority, but rather wanting to present my own views - apologies in advance if they end up coming across as overly defensive or evasive.
MotM: As Joe mentioned on the dev update last week, WotC had requested to take the lead with communicating for Monsters of the Multiverse - but in case it needed to be stated again, we aren't replacing your existing content with the content found in Monsters of the Multiverse. Please know, that it wasn't our intention to stress folks out about whether they would have their content replaced or not or otherwise.
Communication: This is an interesting one since it's one that's actively discussed - though its 100% something that has always been complained about since the site's inception. Don't believe me? Here's a post from before I even became a moderator (or staff member) of me complaining about the lack of communication and Badeye responding in kind. :D
I think the bigger issue is that many folks conflate communication with meaningful communication. Of course, we can go through and respond to every post talking about a missing feature, but, as many folks have also acknowledged in this thread, replying to every post stating that we don't give timelines or ETAs, or variation of that phrase isn't really helpful and isn't really what people are looking for. While I acknowledge that there are instances where we could have been doing more to communicate, I also think there are times where over-communicating can cause more problems than not communicating at all. There's a reason why "Valve Time/Blizz Time" are memes throughout gaming communities - as they very much provide examples where they communicate when something is coming, then miss that expectation and cause their community to go into an uproar ("giff diretide" is a great example if there are any fellow Dota 2 fans).
To provide a more recent (and hopefully relevant example), our team (to clarify, I'm on the team that enters most of the official content that you see here on DDB) was very much ready to announce a cool project I had been spearheading before the holidays. Then, everything changed when the massive errata
attackedwas released. Suffice it to say, this unfortunately pushed those plans back by quite a bit, which were further delayed due to the holidays, and then delayed again coming into the New Year due to other issues unexpectedly popping up as well as other priorities taking precedent. Had we announced it when we intended to (or ahead of time), I imagine many folks would be even more frustrated by us announcing it, then needing to go radio silent on it as other projects took priority (or the ever famous "we don't give ETAs"), and reiterating that until it was ready for release.To circle back to what I was originally saying - I don't disagree with the notion that we could be doing better to communicate with folks. I think that's always going to be an applicable and relevant criticism that can be worked on. That being said, I would also ask that folks consider that when we don't communicate, it isn't out of malice or due to wanting to hide something from the community - but rather something that we aren't able to discuss at the time, something doesn't necessarily have a definitive answer yet, or something that's better off being communicated when the time is right.
Staff Engagement: I must re-iterate here, that this is all of my own thoughts - I don't presume to speak about the other members of the staff. That being said, I think Davyd nailed the issue I've had since becoming a moderator on the forums (which was only amplified when I got the red borders), that having the Orange/Red name shines a spotlight on you - for better or for worse. Everything you say holds a much stronger weight due to the extra level of distinction. There was an instance where I had made an offhanded comment on the forums here that was then be cited on a reddit thread like two months later (which was ridiculously surreal). While I'm typically a lurker anyway, there have been times where I want to chime in to say something but abstain from doing so because I'm aware that the red border/orange sword is srs biz and is more likely to shut down conversation rather than helping facilitate it.
I apologize for this giant wall of text, but the conversation in this thread (especially with how respectful everyone's been) coupled with the very valid criticisms made me self-reflective and I wanted to reply in kind with my thoughts. It's certainly no stretch of the imagination that a large part of what makes DDB successful is our community - from offering feedback (no matter how harsh), to engaging with each other, to generally being a swell bunch of folks.