I am really wondering what DnD Beyond expects from us homebrewers, especially regarding monsters. I have homebrewed versions of Tiamat and Bahamut amongst other official monsters like the Tarrasque or the Ancient Dragon Turtle (which I am linking here as an example because they are still published). Yesterday I made a report about a bug that occurred when I published Bahamut. And now, moderators are removing my versions of Bahamut and Tiamat and my Great Wyrm Black Dragon due to "copyright issues"; Tiamat has been published since a couple of months already and only is removed now that I linked it in the bug report thread.

At first I thought that was meant to help me resolving the bug by allowing me to sorting out what happened and then re-publishing them. But apparently that is not the case, they are removing them because they apparently are copyright violations -  which does not make sense to me. And the default copy-paste textblocks I get as PMs/reasons why they are removed aren't exactly helpful either.

• All these statblocks are own creations, including their flavor text. I just too the mere ideas of these monsters from official content and worked with these - just like lots of other homebrewers out there. I did not copy from other homebrewers nor from official material besides using some standardized text phrases to make them compatible with DnD 5e and easily usable by DMs.
• There are tons of published statblocks based on official monsters, including Bahamut and Tiamat, here in DnD Beyond's homebrew directory, some of really questionable quality if not oughright troll entries, others quite decent to good. And apparently these aren't problematic either, because they have been standing there since aeons. If for some reason releasing a homebrew statblock for an official creature was not allowed, why is that the case?
• Also, per the official guidelines, submitting major variations (which the monsters in question are, if not entirely new creations) of official content is perfectly fine:

Please do not submit minor variations to official content (like a changed weapon for a town guard, or a "warrior" version of a standard monster). It is acceptable to submit variations provided that they contain significant additional changes.

 So, what should I do differently with my homebrew monsters, what does DnD Beyond expect from us homebrewers? Why do they remove monsters such as mine which I put a lot of time and effort in to make them right, to have clean wording, to come up with creative abilities, but allow other statblocks for the same creatures, some of which are of really questionable quality and made with almost no effort put into them?  I would love to hear some clarification to see what I am doing wrong...

Some monsters, like Tiamat and Bahamut are a trademarked and any variation of them is a violation.

So that means I cannot publish my monsters that bear these names at all? Why are there hundreds of other Bahamut or Tiamat monsters out there in the homebrew directory then, why is action taken specificially against my monsters? And why was my Great Wyrm Black Dragon removed, which used the SRD statblock of the Ancient Black Dragon as a template?

Probably because someone reported yours but not the others. 

Is there some way to find out what monsters/characters are trademarked and thus homebrew statblocks for them (as there is no official Bahamut statblock at all, there is just the Aspect of Bahamut from Fizban's) cannot be published here?

A more clear reason than just  "copyright violation" for why these monsters were removed would be great (as would be general moderation not only based on reports to reduce the amount of nonsense/troll entries and accidentially published, unfinished homebrew). Also, is there a way to appeal these decisions besides just resubmitting the monster? Normal dragons should not be trademarked, thus the Great Wyrm statblocks should not be an issue and the moderator who removed one of them probably made a mistake.

You would have to ask an actual Moderator those questions.

But I do not know who these damn moderators are, so I cannot contact them. I just came back only to see that almost all of my published homebrew monsters have been removed. Now I am really salty. I have invested a lot of time in crafting them to share them for the community. And now I need to transfer them all to some other site that allows me to share them. Is there no way to appeal these decisions? After your explanation I can see why Bahamut and Tiamat would get removed if someone had reported them indeed.

But I do not get why all my Great Wyrm Dragons or my Dragon Turtle are removed. They FOR SURE are not trademarked. The chromatic Ancient Dragons all are SRD material! And as I quoted in my OP, D&D Beyond's own homebrew guidelines explicitely allow variants of official content. Who is removing my monsters and why? Can you please stop doing that and instead explain what your issues are?

And of course I am copying bits of text from official monsters to stay true to standard phraseology. Of course I copy-paste things like Frightful Presence, Limited Magic Immunity or a Breath Weapon's text from official statblocks, because there is no reason to use phraseology other than what is standard in DnD 5e's system.

The point of publishing is you going "this is mine, entirely and wholly mine!" and this is clearly not the case with some of your creations using specific names and aspects that are copyrighted. Also, D&D Beyond have rulings that go beyond just copyright, and they're allowed that.

Yes there are others violating the rules. The mod team are human and cannot automate the checking. If you see one violating the terms - report it. 

The list of mods are available in the Site Rules & Guidelines thread that is linked to at the top of every forum. I would recommend PMing one of them over it, as these forums are not the place for this.

-

Also going to mention:

You do know you don't need to publish them?

You, and anyone in the same campaign as you, can use them. Homebrew is shared automatically and no subs are needed. 

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

 

The point of publishing is you going "this is mine, entirely and wholly mine!" and this is clearly not the case with some of your creations using specific names and aspects that are copyrighted. Also, D&D Beyond have rulings that go beyond just copyright, and they're allowed that.

Have you even read my OP? Variants of official content are explicitely allowed by their own guidelines - and the moderators are acting against that by removing my monsters. I am not going "this is mine, entirely and wholly mine!". For my Great Wyrm Dragons, I even had included an explicite disclaimer that they were based on a specific official monster (upscaled Ancient Dragons of the respective color) and that people should check out these statblocks for futher information about lore, lair and lair actions.

Also going to mention:

You do know you don't need to publish them?

You, and anyone in the same campaign as you, can use them. Homebrew is shared automatically and no subs are needed. 

I am publishing them because I am not brewing them for myself, I am creating these monsters for the community and share them so that other DMs can use them if they want. If you read this very subforum, you see many people sharing their homebrew stuff, and I do the same.

Quote from Semako >>

But I do not know who these damn moderators are, so I cannot contact them.

 Hi, I'm one!  Sending you a Private Message so that we can discuss the items mentioned in this thread, sort out a solution for you, and keep all your previous efforts viable.

I created two subclasses

One of which (Sword Sorcery) took me several days to make.

Another (Travel Domain) I never even made any features for because:

I found out I can't publish either because they were apparently BOTH TOO SIMILAR TO CIRCLE OF SPORES

How can something be so similar to published content if literally all it is is a name and a (completely original) description.

Neither subclass is even for the druid class! 

I am so disappointed by this. 

You should not be attempting to publish anything incomplete, such as your Travel Domain cleric. Published homebrew should be 100% feature complete and playtested before publishing. If you wish to use your homebrew in private games, you can ignore the error message as you do not need to (and should not) publish homebrew for use in campaigns you are in.

Having said that, Circle of Spores is a default error message used when some part of the subclass is incomplete, such as a description field not filled out or missing features. It is misinformative, we know.

Quote from KingOfYou115 >>

You should not be attempting to publish anything incomplete, such as your Travel Domain cleric. Published homebrew should be 100% feature complete and playtested before publishing. If you wish to use your homebrew in private games, you can ignore the error message as you do not need to (and should not) publish homebrew for use in campaigns you are in.

Having said that, Circle of Spores is a default error message used when some part of the subclass is incomplete, such as a description field not filled out or missing features. It is misinformative, we know.

 I wasn't attempting to publish it incomplete. It simply informed me that I wouldn't be able to as I was creating it.

Quote from ItsNotAChest >>

Quote from KingOfYou115 >>

You should not be attempting to publish anything incomplete, such as your Travel Domain cleric. Published homebrew should be 100% feature complete and playtested before publishing. If you wish to use your homebrew in private games, you can ignore the error message as you do not need to (and should not) publish homebrew for use in campaigns you are in.

Having said that, Circle of Spores is a default error message used when some part of the subclass is incomplete, such as a description field not filled out or missing features. It is misinformative, we know.

 I wasn't attempting to publish it incomplete. It simply informed me that I wouldn't be able to as I was creating it.

 
Complete.

Save.

Error vanishes.