Well, if it's #1 and #3 that need to be addressed, would this suffice? As I believe this would be the outcome of such a request. Just curious.
This is rude. The original request was I think obviously much, but the response here is rude.
Snarky? Yes. Rude? Hardly. Not to me anyway and I was the one addressed. I don’t mind snark at all, it’s both 50% of my daily intake and 50% of my lifetime output. I literally eat snark for dessert.
Moderators don't have the luxury of being "snarky" on the boards when they feel unappreciated. Unless the goal here is to make sure the sentiments expressed in the title of this thread are more widely held
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Moderators don't have the luxury of being "snarky" on the boards when they feel unappreciated. Unless the goal here is to make sure the sentiments expressed in the title of this thread are more widely held
100% spot on. You can't post that your posts hold more weight than everyone else and therefore you feel restricted in your posting and how you post and then in that very same thread post snarky responses to users. Snarky means to be critical or mock, and to mock is to be scornful or contemptuous. Just because you aren't offended doesn't mean others won't see it as such.
Personally I prefer a glimpse at their human side on occasion. (I genuinely appreciated that one.) They’re people too, and I started it snarky. Sedge just did me the curtesy of replying in my native tongue. But all kidding aside, I was the one being directly replied to. If anyone should have reason to be butt-hurt it should be me and I thought it was funny. I genuinely don’t appreciate people being offended on my behalf when I’m not, and I’m not. So before we derail this thread any further, what say we meander back on topic? Ne?
PS- If we cannot laughing at life occasionally, what’s the point?
Moderators don't have the luxury of being "snarky" on the boards when they feel unappreciated. Unless the goal here is to make sure the sentiments expressed in the title of this thread are more widely held
100% spot on. You can't post that your posts hold more weight than everyone else and therefore you feel restricted in your posting and how you post and then in that very same thread post snarky responses to users. Snarky means to be critical or mock, and to mock is to be scornful or contemptuous. Just because you aren't offended doesn't mean others won't see it as such.
Which is why I’m publicly stating that there was none harm done. No blood, no foul. We good, they and I here. If people were a li’l slower to take offense where none was intended, the world would have not had a minimum of one armed conflict somewhere for every single moment of the last 120,000 years or more.
Well, if it's #1 and #3 that need to be addressed, would this suffice? As I believe this would be the outcome of such a request. Just curious.
This is rude. The original request was I think obviously much, but the response here is rude.
As I've said multiple times in this thread, I want to be pointed with my criticisms.
If I had to have my cake all the time with all the fixings?
Dev Updates should be every other week, with an emphasis on WIP and What's Next. This is already done, just changing the cadence. Why? So it doesn't feel like its the same update over and over. Complaints on the forums are the updates are basically the same. This gives the team the ability to not have to say this on a weekly basis. It also gives them more time to plan a more constructive update. If developers are being brought up, it means they are taking less time out of the fire working on actual progress. This is a "red name" problem.
YouTube already provides transcripts, and twitch is just the more popular program for live broadcasts. YouTube is great for archival and provides accessbility benefits. This system is fine. The arguments about preference of service are moot because both are being used. This is a "red name" problem.
Dev Update should be posted to the forums with whatever slides and brief but thorough descriptions. Even if the cadence is behind the twitch broadcast as they wait for the YouTube video to be released? This is fine since standard twitch contracts for partners and affiliates dictate that you have to wait 24 hours before uploading content to another platform, which is why the youtube video gets put on youtube later. "Red name"
90% of the threads in News can be locked and should be locked to prevent bumping and irrelevant conversation. This is a yellow name problem.
All of the book threads in bugs and support should be condensed to one megathread with all the problems from every source that is listed. This is a locked and staff managed thread. Then you have a separate discussion of bugs thread. This is a total of two threads to manage, one thread to moderate as opposed to five different focal points for all different sources. This is a red name problem at first because you're dealing with site bugs, and then becomes a yellow name problem once its been completed in terms of moderating the actual forums.
All of the feedback portals which are labeled as subforums need to be condensed into ONE thread in Feedback, which is sticked and locked. First post explains what the feedback portals are, and secondary posts are those portals themselves. Digital dice, encounters, etc.
Any thread on the forums that predates the new administration in terms of how the site is presented should be revamped. Period. It's a bad look when all of your threads talking about who runs the show is "alumni" or "insider" and not someone who actually runs the place.
Nah - If I purchase a book I want to go to that books forum and read about the things in it. Not parse through every single book published to find out the information I want.
If the goal is clear communication, condensing everything into a single forum thread is not the solution IMO. You are then asking for everyone to read very long and very text heavy threads to get the exact information they are seeking.
Personally I think something they should be doing is not just posting the changelogs in their own tab (because frankly no one knows about it) but they should also be posting it in a thread on the forum somewhere with a link to the changelog and the thread being locked
Well, if it's #1 and #3 that need to be addressed, would this suffice? As I believe this would be the outcome of such a request. Just curious.
This is rude. The original request was I think obviously much, but the response here is rude.
As I've said multiple times in this thread, I want to be pointed with my criticisms.
If I had to have my cake all the time with all the fixings?
Dev Updates should be every other week, with an emphasis on WIP and What's Next. This is already done, just changing the cadence. Why? So it doesn't feel like its the same update over and over. Complaints on the forums are the updates are basically the same. This gives the team the ability to not have to say this on a weekly basis. It also gives them more time to plan a more constructive update. If developers are being brought up, it means they are taking less time out of the fire working on actual progress. This is a "red name" problem.
YouTube already provides transcripts, and twitch is just the more popular program for live broadcasts. YouTube is great for archival and provides accessbility benefits. This system is fine. The arguments about preference of service are moot because both are being used. This is a "red name" problem.
Dev Update should be posted to the forums with whatever slides and brief but thorough descriptions. Even if the cadence is behind the twitch broadcast as they wait for the YouTube video to be released? This is fine since standard twitch contracts for partners and affiliates dictate that you have to wait 24 hours before uploading content to another platform, which is why the youtube video gets put on youtube later. "Red name"
90% of the threads in News can be locked and should be locked to prevent bumping and irrelevant conversation. This is a yellow name problem.
All of the book threads in bugs and support should be condensed to one megathread with all the problems from every source that is listed. This is a locked and staff managed thread. Then you have a separate discussion of bugs thread. This is a total of two threads to manage, one thread to moderate as opposed to five different focal points for all different sources. This is a red name problem at first because you're dealing with site bugs, and then becomes a yellow name problem once its been completed in terms of moderating the actual forums.
All of the feedback portals which are labeled as subforums need to be condensed into ONE thread in Feedback, which is sticked and locked. First post explains what the feedback portals are, and secondary posts are those portals themselves. Digital dice, encounters, etc.
Any thread on the forums that predates the new administration in terms of how the site is presented should be revamped. Period. It's a bad look when all of your threads talking about who runs the show is "alumni" or "insider" and not someone who actually runs the place.
Nah - If I purchase a book I want to go to that books forum and read about the things in it. Not parse through every single book published to find out the information I want.
If the goal is clear communication, condensing everything into a single forum thread is not the solution IMO. You are then asking for everyone to read very long and very text heavy threads to get the exact information they are seeking.
Personally I think something they should be doing is not just posting the changelogs in their own tab (because frankly no one knows about it) but they should also be posting it in a thread on the forum somewhere with a link to the changelog and the thread being locked
Ideally, you'd have it so "This is the book megathread, here are the links to each post about each book - Tashas, Xanathar, Baldurs Gate, etc.
I do want to highlight that what I mentioned earlier, about the reticence felt when it comes to participating in threads as an orange (or red) name, is kind of playing out in this very thread. A moderator attempted to participate in the thread, not with a canned "company line" but with a candid (if a little snarky) tone, a tone appreciated by the person they were replying to, likely because the moderator was aware of how that user likes to reply (we do pay attention to how our users, especially the more prolific ones, like to converse). This moderator was met with harsh criticism on this, but not by the person they were replying to, who stated several times they were fine with this.
Ultimately this raises a conflict between what's being asked and what's being expected. If orange and red names must always and only conduct themselves as serious and professional faces of the company and not invested members of the community, you will get less interaction from us. If we are only expected to participate in a way in line with company mouthpieces, we will only participate when acting as company mouthpieces; moderators enforcing the rules and staff making sanctioned feature announcements. You can't have it both ways; the orange and red names being active participants in the community, interacting with the community and providing informal insights and tidbits, while also only acting as company representatives.
If the moderators and staff feel that their every word is going to be scrutinised and attacked, then they're not going to want to post, unless it's explicitly part of their job to do so.
Decorum on a message board isn't just directed toward the person a specific reply might be sent to, if the reply is in public. The facts exist that there is a clear double standard that exists for those who are part of a company and those aren't, and it needs to exist. Those who are part of a company are held to a higher standard at all times when communicating with its customers. In our current climate, this is more so where something you do outside of work can get you shitcanned if egergious enough to your superiors. You can participate in threads and give information and people can take it a certain way so yes, you do have to be careful of what you say and how you say it. To Gpyromania's earlier comment, they were surprised that their comment ended up on reddit months later. Decorum on a message board is different than Discord, which is different than Twitter, etc. Target audiences are different, and how you handle communication has to be appropriate with that.
The user in question stated they were fine with it after the fact, as is the nature of forums based conversation since its cause and effect. What if they had replied the other way? What if that person got offended by that comment? Would that then count as being affected by 2c of the site rules for insulting someone or non-constructive posting?
Moderators won’t discuss moderation actions taken against others. It’s all hush hush like everyone’ll forget or something. But of course they advertise your ban to EVERYONE bully yoinking the banned person’s avatar so there is nothing next to their posts for three days. The more one posts the more blatantly obvious it is that they’ve been given an irrefutable invitation to take a vacation from forum posting. So it’s all “we don’t talk about fight club moderation actions so we can all forget it ever happened, but here…. Have this proverbial scarlet letter for 3 days. 🤔🤷♂️
This isn't a thread for discussing the forums moderation policies, that's a topic for a different thread. This thread is for discussing how the communication surrounding D&D Beyond can be improved.
See, orange text means I'm using my mod voice.
And if people expect orange/red names to have a certain 'decorum', then that expectation comes hand-in-hand with less frequent interaction with the community. It's a trade off between the two.
Heya, sooooo this thread has been a few posts to catch up on! 😊
There's some really passionate and valuable feedback in this thread from some of the most active members of our community, and I thank you for that.
I highlighted and discussed this thread with other members of staff last night. I didn't jump in here to respond though as it was around 11pm by then.
Anyways, it's morning and I have coffee now, so I'd like to jump in on a few things.
ISSUES AND CHANGELOG
We hear you. We've been discussing internally, since before Christmas, that we need to look at our changelog system, how we use it, and how to improve it.
Simply put, as a user of a site myself, I hope to be able to click somewhere obvious and see what changes have happened. All of them. The large changelogs with images and explanations on how to do things are great, but currently we're lacking a simple way to see and organise changes.
I'm looking at alternatives and how to improve.
I know this is meme-worthy by now, but I don't have a date to commit to on this ...
PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF MODERATOR ACTIONS
Not publicly discussing moderator action is a rule that has proven itself to be beneficial for this community and many others.
Any issues with moderation can, and should, be taken up with the moderator team, or escalated to staff if needed.
I use sites that don't have active moderation. Just look at Twitter, or some Facebook groups. D&D Beyond forums/discord is not those places. We can, and will, expend the effort to keep these places inclusive and civil. If people choose to push back against that, because they feel they have a right to do so, they will find their access to these forums & discord reduced accordingly.
I will reiterate that we never moderate or ban people for criticising D&D Beyond.
STAFF PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY SPACES
I used to be a forum moderator for D&D Beyond.
glances at post count
At one point, I had way more posts on these forums than anyone else, but with my role here at Fandom, I have a lot more that I need to do, and less time to spend engaging here. I do scan read through forum posts in most subforums while eating breakfast. Also I may have a bit more time free to post random stuff soon, so we'll see on that front.
I've been thinking for a while that it might be nice to have some form of periodic AMA on these forums. We've done similar on discord and have Q&A at the end of each dev update stream. I was imagining something along the lines of, "Hey, I'm Faith and this is a some info on my role at D&D Beyond and what's going on with my team. Any questions?"
Is that something that would be fun/useful?
DEVELOPMENT CYCLES & BUG FIXES
Ohhhh wow, so this isn't my area to talk about, but I can say a few things:
We've not been great about telling you all the things we've actually been working on. We'd love to be able to, but we can't.
There are backlogs of issues from books, that we need to solve. I feel that pain every time I build a character (I build a lot of characters) and some feature doesn't work as I would like it to.
Heya, sooooo this thread has been a few posts to catch up on! 😊
There's some really passionate and valuable feedback in this thread from some of the most active members of our community, and I thank you for that.
I highlighted and discussed this thread with other members of staff last night. I didn't jump in here to respond though as it was around 11pm by then.
Anyways, it's morning and I have coffee now, so I'd like to jump in on a few things.
ISSUES AND CHANGELOG
We hear you. We've been discussing internally, since before Christmas, that we need to look at our changelog system, how we use it, and how to improve it.
Simply put, as a user of a site myself, I hope to be able to click somewhere obvious and see what changes have happened. All of them. The large changelogs with images and explanations on how to do things are great, but currently we're lacking a simple way to see and organise changes.
I'm looking at alternatives and how to improve.
I know this is meme-worthy by now, but I don't have a date to commit to on this ...
PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF MODERATOR ACTIONS
Not publicly discussing moderator action is a rule that has proven itself to be beneficial for this community and many others.
Any issues with moderation can, and should, be taken up with the moderator team, or escalated to staff if needed.
I use sites that don't have active moderation. Just look at Twitter, or some Facebook groups. D&D Beyond forums/discord is not those places. We can, and will, expend the effort to keep these places inclusive and civil. If people choose to push back against that, because they feel they have a right to do so, they will find their access to these forums & discord reduced accordingly.
I will reiterate that we never moderate or ban people for criticising D&D Beyond.
STAFF PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY SPACES
I used to be a forum moderator for D&D Beyond.
glances at post count
At one point, I had way more posts on these forums than anyone else, but with my role here at Fandom, I have a lot more that I need to do, and less time to spend engaging here. I do scan read through forum posts in most subforums while eating breakfast. Also I may have a bit more time free to post random stuff soon, so we'll see on that front.
I've been thinking for a while that it might be nice to have some form of periodic AMA on these forums. We've done similar on discord and have Q&A at the end of each dev update stream. I was imagining something along the lines of, "Hey, I'm Faith and this is a some info on my role at D&D Beyond and what's going on with my team. Any questions?"
Is that something that would be fun/useful?
DEVELOPMENT CYCLES & BUG FIXES
Ohhhh wow, so this isn't my area to talk about, but I can say a few things:
We've not been great about telling you all the things we've actually been working on. We'd love to be able to, but we can't.
There are backlogs of issues from books, that we need to solve. I feel that pain every time I build a character (I build a lot of characters) and some feature doesn't work as I would like it to.
With all respect, and knowing that I sometimes come over as confrontational, but will there be an official response on why the subscriber perks for December and January are the same? It will help with the grumbling.
This isn't a thread for discussing the forums moderation policies, that's a topic for a different thread. This thread is for discussing how the communication surrounding D&D Beyond can be improved.
See, orange text means I'm using my mod voice.
And if people expect orange/red names to have a certain 'decorum', then that expectation comes hand-in-hand with less frequent interaction with the community. It's a trade off between the two.
In all seriousness, more than 60% of all human communication is non-verbal. In that regard, those policies are a form of communication, and simultaneously another obfuscation. That’s what we call “mixed signals.” So I’m sorry if you disagree, but my comment most sincerely was regarding a form of communication from/by DDB. It was most certainly on-topic.
This isn't a thread for discussing the forums moderation policies, that's a topic for a different thread. This thread is for discussing how the communication surrounding D&D Beyond can be improved.
See, orange text means I'm using my mod voice.
And if people expect orange/red names to have a certain 'decorum', then that expectation comes hand-in-hand with less frequent interaction with the community. It's a trade off between the two.
In all seriousness, more than 60% of all human communication is non-verbal. In that regard, those policies are a form of communication, and simultaneously another obfuscation. That’s what we call “mixed signals.” So I’m sorry if you disagree, but my comment most sincerely was regarding a form of communication from/by DDB. It was most certainly on-topic.
I'm going to reiterate that this thread is not the place to discuss the moderation policies at it is off topic. D&D Beyonds moderation policies of the forums is a different matter from how D&D Beyond communicates with it's community regarding the products and services it provides. Yes, they both involve communication, but that doesn't make them the same topic.
Note: I am providing the idea below having not seen any D&DB streams or vids on any site and is solely based on reading the posts above.
One thought I had after reading the above posts was what about 2 different info streams, one every week for the people who are new and or looking to see what D&DB is and has to offer and the second bi-weekly or monthly with special info episodes an option for longer time users or advanced users. The problem I see is that it is one more "show" to produce vs what has been described above but the benefit would be for D&DB to be able to focus more on the two basic types of users or potential users.
Heya, sooooo this thread has been a few posts to catch up on! 😊
There's some really passionate and valuable feedback in this thread from some of the most active members of our community, and I thank you for that.
I highlighted and discussed this thread with other members of staff last night. I didn't jump in here to respond though as it was around 11pm by then.
Anyways, it's morning and I have coffee now, so I'd like to jump in on a few things.
ISSUES AND CHANGELOG
We hear you. We've been discussing internally, since before Christmas, that we need to look at our changelog system, how we use it, and how to improve it.
Simply put, as a user of a site myself, I hope to be able to click somewhere obvious and see what changes have happened. All of them. The large changelogs with images and explanations on how to do things are great, but currently we're lacking a simple way to see and organise changes.
I'm looking at alternatives and how to improve.
I know this is meme-worthy by now, but I don't have a date to commit to on this ...
PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF MODERATOR ACTIONS
Not publicly discussing moderator action is a rule that has proven itself to be beneficial for this community and many others.
Any issues with moderation can, and should, be taken up with the moderator team, or escalated to staff if needed.
I use sites that don't have active moderation. Just look at Twitter, or some Facebook groups. D&D Beyond forums/discord is not those places. We can, and will, expend the effort to keep these places inclusive and civil. If people choose to push back against that, because they feel they have a right to do so, they will find their access to these forums & discord reduced accordingly.
I will reiterate that we never moderate or ban people for criticising D&D Beyond.
STAFF PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY SPACES
I used to be a forum moderator for D&D Beyond.
glances at post count
At one point, I had way more posts on these forums than anyone else, but with my role here at Fandom, I have a lot more that I need to do, and less time to spend engaging here. I do scan read through forum posts in most subforums while eating breakfast. Also I may have a bit more time free to post random stuff soon, so we'll see on that front.
I've been thinking for a while that it might be nice to have some form of periodic AMA on these forums. We've done similar on discord and have Q&A at the end of each dev update stream. I was imagining something along the lines of, "Hey, I'm Faith and this is a some info on my role at D&D Beyond and what's going on with my team. Any questions?"
Is that something that would be fun/useful?
DEVELOPMENT CYCLES & BUG FIXES
Ohhhh wow, so this isn't my area to talk about, but I can say a few things:
We've not been great about telling you all the things we've actually been working on. We'd love to be able to, but we can't.
There are backlogs of issues from books, that we need to solve. I feel that pain every time I build a character (I build a lot of characters) and some feature doesn't work as I would like it to.
As far as having some AMAs here on the site yes that would be great and greatly appreciated. And as far as a changelog goes most of us dont really care it its all fancy looking it could be simple text as far as most of us are concerned.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I've been thinking for a while that it might be nice to have some form of periodic AMA on these forums. We've done similar on discord and have Q&A at the end of each dev update stream. I was imagining something along the lines of, "Hey, I'm Faith and this is a some info on my role at D&D Beyond and what's going on with my team. Any questions?"
Is that something that would be fun/useful? ...
100% I feel this would be useful. Whether it would be fun probably depends on the atmosphere around here that day 😋
As I stated before I don't really get to ask questions during the dev update due to it's timing (work) so this may give me a chance. I'm sure this would also apply to others here.
As an aside I chuckled at the WIP link Sedge posted as it really feels like it reflects the backlog and they said prior they were speaking as a consumer. I do think Dayvd's statement of orange text for mod speak, other text for just chatting really helped me recognize what voice they're talking in (even just reading through this thread). I never noticed before but I will take note from now on as it does change the tone I'm reading in my mind. Thank you for that.
I do think Dayvd's statement of orange text for mod speak, other text for just chatting really helped me recognize what voice they're talking in (even just reading through this thread). I never noticed before but I will take note from now on as it does change the tone I'm reading in my mind. Thank you for that.
Regardless of what color font they're using, it still says Moderator right on their profile. It's just not as simple as putting on one hat instead of another
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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Snarky? Yes. Rude? Hardly. Not to me anyway and I was the one addressed. I don’t mind snark at all, it’s both 50% of my daily intake and 50% of my lifetime output. I literally eat snark for dessert.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Moderators don't have the luxury of being "snarky" on the boards when they feel unappreciated. Unless the goal here is to make sure the sentiments expressed in the title of this thread are more widely held
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
100% spot on. You can't post that your posts hold more weight than everyone else and therefore you feel restricted in your posting and how you post and then in that very same thread post snarky responses to users. Snarky means to be critical or mock, and to mock is to be scornful or contemptuous. Just because you aren't offended doesn't mean others won't see it as such.
Personally I prefer a glimpse at their human side on occasion. (I genuinely appreciated that one.) They’re people too, and I started it snarky. Sedge just did me the curtesy of replying in my native tongue. But all kidding aside, I was the one being directly replied to. If anyone should have reason to be butt-hurt it should be me and I thought it was funny. I genuinely don’t appreciate people being offended on my behalf when I’m not, and I’m not. So before we derail this thread any further, what say we meander back on topic? Ne?
PS- If we cannot laughing at life occasionally, what’s the point?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Which is why I’m publicly stating that there was none harm done. No blood, no foul. We good, they and I here. If people were a li’l slower to take offense where none was intended, the world would have not had a minimum of one armed conflict somewhere for every single moment of the last 120,000 years or more.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Nah - If I purchase a book I want to go to that books forum and read about the things in it. Not parse through every single book published to find out the information I want.
If the goal is clear communication, condensing everything into a single forum thread is not the solution IMO. You are then asking for everyone to read very long and very text heavy threads to get the exact information they are seeking.
Personally I think something they should be doing is not just posting the changelogs in their own tab (because frankly no one knows about it) but they should also be posting it in a thread on the forum somewhere with a link to the changelog and the thread being locked
Ideally, you'd have it so "This is the book megathread, here are the links to each post about each book - Tashas, Xanathar, Baldurs Gate, etc.
I do want to highlight that what I mentioned earlier, about the reticence felt when it comes to participating in threads as an orange (or red) name, is kind of playing out in this very thread. A moderator attempted to participate in the thread, not with a canned "company line" but with a candid (if a little snarky) tone, a tone appreciated by the person they were replying to, likely because the moderator was aware of how that user likes to reply (we do pay attention to how our users, especially the more prolific ones, like to converse). This moderator was met with harsh criticism on this, but not by the person they were replying to, who stated several times they were fine with this.
Ultimately this raises a conflict between what's being asked and what's being expected. If orange and red names must always and only conduct themselves as serious and professional faces of the company and not invested members of the community, you will get less interaction from us. If we are only expected to participate in a way in line with company mouthpieces, we will only participate when acting as company mouthpieces; moderators enforcing the rules and staff making sanctioned feature announcements. You can't have it both ways; the orange and red names being active participants in the community, interacting with the community and providing informal insights and tidbits, while also only acting as company representatives.
If the moderators and staff feel that their every word is going to be scrutinised and attacked, then they're not going to want to post, unless it's explicitly part of their job to do so.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Decorum on a message board isn't just directed toward the person a specific reply might be sent to, if the reply is in public. The facts exist that there is a clear double standard that exists for those who are part of a company and those aren't, and it needs to exist. Those who are part of a company are held to a higher standard at all times when communicating with its customers. In our current climate, this is more so where something you do outside of work can get you shitcanned if egergious enough to your superiors. You can participate in threads and give information and people can take it a certain way so yes, you do have to be careful of what you say and how you say it. To Gpyromania's earlier comment, they were surprised that their comment ended up on reddit months later. Decorum on a message board is different than Discord, which is different than Twitter, etc. Target audiences are different, and how you handle communication has to be appropriate with that.
The user in question stated they were fine with it after the fact, as is the nature of forums based conversation since its cause and effect. What if they had replied the other way? What if that person got offended by that comment? Would that then count as being affected by 2c of the site rules for insulting someone or non-constructive posting?
Moderators won’t discuss moderation actions taken against others. It’s all hush hush like everyone’ll forget or something. But of course they advertise your ban to EVERYONE bully yoinking the banned person’s avatar so there is nothing next to their posts for three days. The more one posts the more blatantly obvious it is that they’ve been given an irrefutable invitation to take a vacation from forum posting. So it’s all “we don’t talk about
fight clubmoderation actions so we can all forget it ever happened, but here…. Have this proverbial scarlet letter for 3 days. 🤔🤷♂️Context.👆
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This isn't a thread for discussing the forums moderation policies, that's a topic for a different thread. This thread is for discussing how the communication surrounding D&D Beyond can be improved.
See, orange text means I'm using my mod voice.
And if people expect orange/red names to have a certain 'decorum', then that expectation comes hand-in-hand with less frequent interaction with the community. It's a trade off between the two.
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D&D Beyond FoundersHeya, sooooo this thread has been a few posts to catch up on! 😊
There's some really passionate and valuable feedback in this thread from some of the most active members of our community, and I thank you for that.
I highlighted and discussed this thread with other members of staff last night. I didn't jump in here to respond though as it was around 11pm by then.
Anyways, it's morning and I have coffee now, so I'd like to jump in on a few things.
ISSUES AND CHANGELOG
We hear you. We've been discussing internally, since before Christmas, that we need to look at our changelog system, how we use it, and how to improve it.
Simply put, as a user of a site myself, I hope to be able to click somewhere obvious and see what changes have happened. All of them. The large changelogs with images and explanations on how to do things are great, but currently we're lacking a simple way to see and organise changes.
I'm looking at alternatives and how to improve.
I know this is meme-worthy by now, but I don't have a date to commit to on this ...
PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF MODERATOR ACTIONS
Not publicly discussing moderator action is a rule that has proven itself to be beneficial for this community and many others.
Any issues with moderation can, and should, be taken up with the moderator team, or escalated to staff if needed.
I use sites that don't have active moderation. Just look at Twitter, or some Facebook groups. D&D Beyond forums/discord is not those places. We can, and will, expend the effort to keep these places inclusive and civil. If people choose to push back against that, because they feel they have a right to do so, they will find their access to these forums & discord reduced accordingly.
I will reiterate that we never moderate or ban people for criticising D&D Beyond.
STAFF PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY SPACES
I used to be a forum moderator for D&D Beyond.
glances at post count
At one point, I had way more posts on these forums than anyone else, but with my role here at Fandom, I have a lot more that I need to do, and less time to spend engaging here. I do scan read through forum posts in most subforums while eating breakfast. Also I may have a bit more time free to post random stuff soon, so we'll see on that front.
I've been thinking for a while that it might be nice to have some form of periodic AMA on these forums. We've done similar on discord and have Q&A at the end of each dev update stream. I was imagining something along the lines of, "Hey, I'm Faith and this is a some info on my role at D&D Beyond and what's going on with my team. Any questions?"
Is that something that would be fun/useful?
DEVELOPMENT CYCLES & BUG FIXES
Ohhhh wow, so this isn't my area to talk about, but I can say a few things:
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
With all respect, and knowing that I sometimes come over as confrontational, but will there be an official response on why the subscriber perks for December and January are the same? It will help with the grumbling.
In all seriousness, more than 60% of all human communication is non-verbal. In that regard, those policies are a form of communication, and simultaneously another obfuscation. That’s what we call “mixed signals.” So I’m sorry if you disagree, but my comment most sincerely was regarding a form of communication from/by DDB. It was most certainly on-topic.
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I'm going to reiterate that this thread is not the place to discuss the moderation policies at it is off topic. D&D Beyonds moderation policies of the forums is a different matter from how D&D Beyond communicates with it's community regarding the products and services it provides. Yes, they both involve communication, but that doesn't make them the same topic.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Note: I am providing the idea below having not seen any D&DB streams or vids on any site and is solely based on reading the posts above.
One thought I had after reading the above posts was what about 2 different info streams, one every week for the people who are new and or looking to see what D&DB is and has to offer and the second bi-weekly or monthly with special info episodes an option for longer time users or advanced users. The problem I see is that it is one more "show" to produce vs what has been described above but the benefit would be for D&DB to be able to focus more on the two basic types of users or potential users.
MDC
As far as having some AMAs here on the site yes that would be great and greatly appreciated. And as far as a changelog goes most of us dont really care it its all fancy looking it could be simple text as far as most of us are concerned.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I wasn't aware of this. Half the time I don't see any avatars, including my own.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
100% I feel this would be useful. Whether it would be fun probably depends on the atmosphere around here that day 😋
As I stated before I don't really get to ask questions during the dev update due to it's timing (work) so this may give me a chance. I'm sure this would also apply to others here.
As an aside I chuckled at the WIP link Sedge posted as it really feels like it reflects the backlog and they said prior they were speaking as a consumer. I do think Dayvd's statement of orange text for mod speak, other text for just chatting really helped me recognize what voice they're talking in (even just reading through this thread). I never noticed before but I will take note from now on as it does change the tone I'm reading in my mind. Thank you for that.
Regardless of what color font they're using, it still says Moderator right on their profile. It's just not as simple as putting on one hat instead of another
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