The Official Feedback Thread

[Jeremy]

The creation of this thread was inspired by your posts in a recent thread where many of you left feedback about various topics. This new thread will work better as a permanent place to receive and discuss feedback. The staff have spent this past week discussing how we can address some of your suggestions, so we'll post our responses broken into several categories. Order/timeline of these responses TBD:

• Feedback and communicating with staff
• Collectibles market
• AI images on TBT
• Hateful content and controversial content
• Repeat winners and competitiveness
• Event rules
• Site staff
• Miscellaneous

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Our first topic from the thread, feedback, has been summarized into five topics.

Create an official feedback thread similar to the Information Desk

As you can see, we agreed with this idea. Here it is!

Told not to give feedback during an event

Going forward, we'll welcome feedback to be shared at any time. In this particular case, it seems there were issues with criticism and arguments mixing into the goings-on of the event, which caused some of it to be missed. This new thread will help keep the feedback organized into a dedicated place where it will be easier to track. Giving feedback privately should also be an option at any time, and I'll talk about that a bit more in the CTS response below.

No response to reports

TBT moderators have never messaged reportees, which is due to a few different reasons, such as privacy for the users involved, the complexities of certain situations, and the time it takes to handle each report. However, we are open to discussing reports through the private Contact the Staff board, as long as it's information that can be shared.

For those of you who would like to see an automatic response to every report, we're interested in hearing more about the kind of information you would like to see. Are you looking for a simple confirmation that we've reviewed the report or something more? With the forum software's current capabilities, it's certainly a lot easier to have detailed discussions in the CTS board, which leads to our next topic.

Lack of response in CTS

Contact the Staff (CTS) is a board for users to talk to the staff privately whether they have a question about a warning, an issue with another user, or even private feedback. Some members mentioned that they never received a response to their threads, and this is something we would like to improve. Since the beginning of 2024, staff have replied to 82% of CTS threads, so while this isn't horrible, it goes to show that we could be doing better. The reason this happens is often due to threads getting buried while the staff's attention is directed elsewhere, like an event.

To help improve our responses in CTS, we'll do the following:

• Create a separate board for collectible date changes from events, which often bury other threads.
• Potentially split private feedback into its own board - we're still considering this.
• Add more prefixes, such as "Under Review" and "Feedback Considered" to help communicate that the thread has been read while we review/consider the situation before posting a response.
• Work on a system to increase the visibility of threads posted to the board for the staff.
• Revisit threads from the last year or two and reply to those that we haven't posted in.

Mini-modding and users "getting infractions for helping newcomers by redirecting them to the correct forum"

While we don't allow mini-modding, it's not a punishable offense unless it's severely abused. The forum's warning system is the easiest way for us to send and track messages about the rules, which is why these show in the same place. However, these "warnings" are all titled as "reminders" and are worth 0 points. One of the reasons we prefer users to report misplaced threads over posting a correction is that it often encourages the user to recreate the thread. When it's reported instead, we're able to move it. While we don't see this as a big deal, I understand some users don't like to receive anything under the guise of a "warning."

We are considering how we can make this even clearer. In place of these reminders, we have started deleting posts with an alert explaining the reason to the user. We plan to use this even more once we iron out some details about how it works on our end.

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In the first post of this thread, we included some guidelines about leaving feedback. Since our first topic is about feedback itself, now is a good time to elaborate on these guidelines and their purpose:

• Constructive, not just critical. While criticism is welcome, we would like the feedback we receive to be actionable when possible. You are free to be critical in your feedback, but the most helpful suggestions explain what you would like to see changed or how you would prefer things to be handled.
• Understanding and cooperative, not accusatory. Feedback is better received when it's not framed in an accusatory manner. The staff team consists of experienced people who want to improve TBT wherever possible. At the same time, any team of humans is bound to be imperfect. The community as a whole shares the common goal of making TBT even better, so let's work together to achieve it as best we can.
• Respectful to other community members, including the staff. Disagreeing about feedback or responses to feedback is fine, but it should be done respectfully. Most members want what's best for the community, even if what that means may not look the same to different people. If you believe someone's feedback is disrespectful, please help make us aware by reporting it.
• Specific, with examples if applicable. Since we don't always have the same context as members, it may not always be clear what situation or area of concern is being referred to without an explicit explanation. If you feel the specific issue is something that shouldn't be discussed publicly, private feedback can be left using the Contact the Staff board.

We would also like members to keep the following in mind when presenting feedback and reading our responses to feedback:

• Sometimes there is a mismatch in information between members and staff. The staff often have information and internal discussions that cannot be shared with members, and, on the opposite end, members may be aware of information and context that was either not brought to our attention or was buried.
• Some topics are more nuanced than others and don't have one "right" way to address them. This may be due to information that is not visible or due to other factors that we have to take into consideration. Sometimes, how we address a situation may only seem suboptimal due to factors we are unable to disclose, but we also recognize that our staff team is only human and therefore capable of making mistakes. There will always be cases in which the "right" course of action may be subjective, but we always discuss these matters as a full team to ensure they're handled appropriately and fairly.

Though there isn't much that can be done regarding these facts, which can often lead to frustrations from both the user and staff perspective, we would like to encourage you to give us the benefit of the doubt when possible as we try to do the same.


Thanks for reading our first response! Feel free to post any additional questions or comments.

 

[Jeremy]

Hi all. In this post, I'll address the topic of event rules, specifically the recurring feedback we've received regarding inconsistent enforcement of effort rules. This concern started during one of the creative tasks in our recent Valentine's Day event when a participant's submission was rejected and they were asked to resubmit.

Since then, some members have expressed frustration about how this was/wasn't addressed during and after the event and have recently pressured Chris, the task's host, to make a statement. While it's too late to make any changes to the event after its conclusion, I'll do my best to explain rule enforcement in events from a staff member's point of view and address aspects of it that we hope to improve.

Effort Rules

Our creative events typically include a rule that asks for each entry to be made with a "reasonable amount of effort." We added this rule a long time ago after we had to ask some participants to resubmit their entries. The idea is to require some standard of participation so that events aren't used as easy ways to earn prizes, especially because other members spend a lot of time on their entries.

To provide some context for this rule's original intention, consider the following example for an event to "create a creature":

Spoiler: Example

A staff member drew this image, but there have been submissions in the past that were similar in perceived effort, so this rule was designed to help prevent them. Over time, however, our bar for reasonable effort has likely shifted as these kinds of submissions have become rare. This is possibly a result of the overall increase in quality in submissions as well!

During the recent event, some members disagreed about an entry's rejection for not using enough effort. We've reviewed the event, and while the entry used a different medium than we typically see for art submissions, we agree that it displayed sufficient effort to qualify for participation rewards. Going forward, we'll reframe the effort rule so that it more specifically addresses the amount of "detail" included in creative entries instead of the perceived amount of "effort" it takes to create them. We'd also like to clarify that the medium used will not be considered when making this judgment but, if applicable, would be covered by separate rules depending on the task.

Furthermore, while we would like to keep some form of this rule in place to keep things fair, we believe that event participation is, first and foremost, just for fun. Other participants who go above and beyond have the chance to earn extra prizes by winning contests or staff favorite selections. At the same time, other members may not be confident in their artistic abilities, which could cause them to be unsure about participating in creative events altogether. We want to stress that effort does not necessarily correlate with skill, and we design events to be as inclusive as possible so that everyone feels comfortable participating regardless of their perceived skill level.

Another reason we're changing the way this rule is worded is that we acknowledge how implying your entry is "low effort" may come across as insulting. While rules will always need to be enforced in events, we certainly don't intend to hurt anyone's feelings! Another concern that came up about this specific incident was the fact that it was rejected publicly. Sometimes we handle issues with submissions within a reply, while other times they are handled privately. This is usually at the host's discretion. Replying directly in the event thread is often easier, or there is additional context wherein a public response seems necessary. However, we can see that this may be embarrassing. Going forward, we'll consider the types of issues with event submissions that would merit a private message and try to handle similar cases privately.

Consistency in Event Rules

As you've seen when we host events, each task is run by one or two staff members, which is one of the ways we distribute event work to the team. Having staff members take the lead on their part of the event helps everything run smoothly, but it means we are generally less focused on the other parts. However, event rules are ideally enforced as consistently as possible, which was one of the concerns brought up about the effort rule. Judging art is subjective, which is also true regarding the perceived effort used to create it. It can be challenging to maintain a consistent standard while considering different skill levels, mediums, and circumstances. To help address this in the future, we'll aim to have more staff members give feedback before a submission is declined. Of course, this can also be challenging due to schedules and commitments in other areas of the event.

Problems With Some Feedback

Finally, I'd like to talk about the feedback that was given about this issue and our response up until now. In my previous posts, I listed some guidelines about leaving feedback and asked that it be cooperative and constructive, not accusatory. Unfortunately, some members who weren't involved made extremely accusatory, demanding, targeted, and sometimes even insulting posts directed at Chris. This is why LadyDestani made another statement about giving feedback and the site's rules regarding being respectful. The situation that resulted would make any staff member feel uncomfortable, which is why he's not addressing this himself. Making demands is not a helpful way to leave feedback, as shown by this example. That being said, we do appreciate all of the constructive and friendly feedback given about any topic, including this one, and we hope to use it to help improve TBT.

Conclusion

In summary, we plan to:

• Reframe our effort rules
• If applicable, clarify the allowed medium with separate rules
• Reach out to participants privately in certain situations
• Have more team members give feedback before rejecting a submission

We also agree that effort should not be judged too harshly and regret that the enforcement of this rule caused feelings to be hurt. In one of our upcoming responses, we'll touch on more event-related topics, such as repeat winners and competitiveness. Thank you!

 

[Justin]

Hi everyone. Like Jeremy mentioned previously, we plan to cover the main topics he outlined at the start of this thread in summary posts.

However, I want to make an exception to talk about the What Do You Look Like thread. This is because it's a new topic not covered in the previous thread that quickly found a lot of agreement on staff with simple changes that can quickly be made:

• We'll unpin the WDYLL thread. We're okay with the thread existing on the forum for those who wish to share photos, but agree there's no particular reason we need to endorse or encourage members to post photos of themselves by pinning the thread. It can exist just the same as other Brewster's threads.
  • Spoiler: Sidebar about pins; Justin's personal opinion

    Some of you might be wondering why it was pinned to begin with -- honestly, it was over 10 years ago now, so I couldn't really tell you. If I had to guess, it was simply a nice thought of a moderator that our community could be closer by seeing each other. We were living under what you might call 'peak selfie' back then, and now we're not anymore haha. Times change.
    
    The other aspect of this is sometimes in forum culture, once a thread becomes pinned, they sort of become 'grandfathered' in with a feeling that you need to justify to either other staff or the community as a whole why you're choosing to unpin something! So, some threads just kind of end up staying in place without much thought or regard, and this is a good example of that.
• We'll ask that only members aged 18 and above post photos of themselves with a note regarding this in WDYLL. If there's a photo reported or seen by ourselves with clear reason to believe the member is likely under 18, we'll remove it. Right now, this is simply noted in the opening post, but we may be able to make it more prominent later.
• We'll hide the WDYLL thread from guest access soon. This is actually something we'd already been looking into previously for a few select threads on the forum. As things go, it got put on the back burner for other priorities, but we will be working on it again now with your feedback in mind.
• Long term, we'll consider automatically removing ancient photos from WDYLL. Unlike the other points here, this is not something simple or easy to implement. We'll consider it in the future, but it's not an immediate priority or something we can promise.

Thanks for your feedback on this issue!

 

[Mistreil]

About the events, I think it would be cool if we got more of the game ones that @/Mistreil made like the oarfish one where you ate the staff's island reps to grow bigger or the one with Leif where you had to make your way out of the maze. I'm no programmer so I figure those game probably took lots of time to program and stuff, but I enjoyed seeing and playing them even though I wasn't very good at them

Games!

Since these are my domain, I've decided to just talk about these immediately because 1) it only really is relevant to me on the staff team, 2) I'm stuck on a train and trying not to fall asleep and miss my stop, and 3) I'm a nerd.

The tl;dr if you don't want to read this over-detailed post is: feel absolutely free to suggest game ideas/domains/etc.! There are limitations to what I can reasonably make, but having a log of ideas when my brain is empty is always helpful -- especially since I'm never sure what might actually be interesting to people aside from me!

I think this is probably the main thing I should mention: limitations to the games that I make.

There's a few categories here, but the main ones are about the game design itself, and then the implementation.

... The last limiting factor is also just my own time and mental energy -- I do programming for my full-time job, so I usually just... don't want to think on my off-time, even if I really like game development and find it fun. Most of the games I've made so far were actually quick weekend endeavors! Or reskins done in the few hours between work and sleep.

Game Design Limitations
This isn't about art or anything (somewhat), but more about the types of games made, things that can be used in them, and their controls.

The main factor is: every game I make, I try to make sure that it's something most members should be able to play. Namely the rules I try to keep in mind are:

1. It has to be mobile-friendly: This means the controls are either using the keyboard-only, or have click/swipe controls, but not both (unless at separate times).
2. If audio is required, there has to be a text-equivalent: For obvious accessibility reasons. I think I messed this one up once, but quickly adjusted (iirc it was available but the text version was too unclear initially -- or I had a bug and it didn't actually appear right; might've been both). This also means I'm probably never going to make a rhythm game. Sorry to my fellow rhythm gamers.
3. Anything with multiple repetitive clicks/button mashing is a no-go: Single click quick-time events are OK (with a slightly generous timing window), but that's it. I don't want people breaking their hands, keyboard, or phone. Also I'm not giving myself repetitive strain injuries while playtesting. This means no cookie clicker, unless there's a built-in autoclicker from the start.
4. It should be short-ish: Or doable in a single session, even if a bit difficult. This one's a bit looser, but the general idea is I don't want people to have to spend more than like 20 minutes to solve something at fastest. If I hand it to the other staff* and it takes them more than 20 minutes, I usually try to adjust. Usually. So no long epic narratives (unless I split it into multiple small parts!)

* Shout out to ~Kilza~ who I use as a good benchmark for "is this too hard"

The summary is that games I make and any suggestions need to be fairly accessible! Games that are frustrating because of brain usage is OK (although hopefully not too frustrating), but not because of skill, technology, or accessibility issues.

On a side note, I've had a few personal concerns about visual-oriented games (like the mazes), but those seem to have largely gone OK so far? The only thing I need to keep in mind in that regard is probably colour blindness (so no puzzles where colour is the only indicator of difference). But maaaybe there's other things I'm forgetting?
If there are any accessibility issues you've faced with the games, please do let me know! I know some of them were difficult, but hopefully not too impossible.

Implementation Limitations
This one isn't really something anyone else can predict aside from me, but it does factor into what I am able to make reasonably.

The short of it is: I implement almost everything from scratch for the games.

Think of it like making a cake via cake mix and premade icing vs. from scratch with both results looking pretty much the same in the end. Most people being happy with having a cake at all, but there's still reasons to do things from scratch (like ingredients, health, because it's fun, etc.)

There's a few reasons for this:

1. It keeps the file size small: This is sort of the large one - I  could just write games in a game engine (e.g. Godot) and then export it for web! This is much faster, but the resulting files are usually larger than they need to be -- which I don't really like. At most, the games I make have just the images as the main overhead for data usage/loading time (and I try to keep that somewhat reasonable too -- if I do make games that have significantly larger images, I'll probably note what the total size is.)
2. It gives me more control: All the problems that appear are things within my control (for the most part), and things that I can probably fix much faster than trying to figure out why a game engine handles something a certain way. Also more control over the size of files, and the control scheme of the game (and thus mobile-compatibility.)
3. I find the technical part fun: I'm a nerd, nothing else to say here. I find it fun to make things from scratch.

There's a lot of drawbacks to this: namely that it takes way longer for me to make the entire engine from scratch compared to doing it in an existing game engine (e.g. moving a character around and animating it takes like, 2 minutes to do in Godot -- but instead I have to spend like 6 hours making the logic for the map, sprite reading, movement, animating, etc. which may also be more bug-prone.)

(I don't actually know if anyone cares or if the difference would even be notable, but I care and I'm the one making the games. So in exchange, you get fewer games because I'm stubborn about this.)

With that said, there's actually very few limitations in terms of programming ability -- I'm fairly good at figuring out how to implement things (and I'm building on existing projects over time -- like text in the maze games). There's just a higher initial timesink to build the base from scratch.

Game Ideas

I would love a fishing game. 0.00000001% chance of getting a golden ray or something webfishing

Funny you mention that! There are a few ideas I've had floating in my head that I might explore in the future, such as:

• RNG Games: ... like fishing or balloon shooting! Various locations, a simple wait + click quick-time event, and then you get a random fish or something. In terms of event currency, it's probably redemption codes after getting X rolls (and people can share their results or something for funsies.)
• Visual Novel-like Games: ... like dating sims but not romancey except in a maybe comedy sort of way. Just some reading, maybe results based on what you pick. But I'm not actually that confident in my ability to write that much, sooo... big maybe here.
• Point-and-click Puzzle: ... probably an escape room sort of game, since I like those. But this one's a bit more time consuming for me to implement compared to others, including art asset creation.
• General game reskins: ... like what I did with Snake (Oarfish)! Maybe 2048 or minesweeper or something, because... I just like those games.

I'd love to know what sorts of games you'd be interested in! Part of me making these is because I find it fun to do, but also because I like seeing people have fun!
I grew up playing like, neopets and its minigames, so... this is me trying to carry on that spirit in a way, I guess.

---

Aaaand that's about it! Thanks for reading! I may edit this in the future if there's more things I forgot to mention.
... this is also why you probably shouldn't ask me about my fields of interest. this was probably way more information than is actually relevant and yet required 0 braincells for me to write.

but also it got me through my train ride. and i almost missed my stop because i was locked in on rambling. oops.

 

[Mairmalade]

Hi, everyone!

Based on the feedback and some of the reports we've received recently, we want to address the What's Bothering You thread sooner, too.

This thread was initially created as a space for members to vent and share their feelings. However, we recognize that the nature of this space can also lead to misunderstandings, discomfort, hurt feelings, and tension.

To help the thread remain a safe and supportive outlet, we've discussed and are introducing additional guidelines alongside our existing ones when posting in it:

• Focus on your own experiences and feelings. Please avoid sharing personal details or issues about others to respect their privacy
• Do not make indirect statements about others. Making vague statements about a past or present relationship/friendship who are members of TBT can be harmful. Even when you don't include any identifying factors, the other person can figure out they're the target of your post, and we often can't verify or take action because we don't have any knowledge of the situation
  • This also applies to posting about another person's situation, whether positive (e.g., concern, worry) or negative, as their situation is not yours to share
• Be mindful of sensitive content. Some topics may be triggering to others (e.g., mental health struggles, traumatic experiences, medical conditions and procedures, politics, or loss). We encourage using spoiler tags for such content to be considerate of everyone using the space.

Code for Spoiler Tags:

[spoiler=Spoiler Title Text Here]Your post content here[/spoiler]

Becomes:

Spoiler: Spoiler Title Text Here

Your post content here

As always, please continue to report rule-breaking posts for staff review.

Additionally, we've decided to close the Pet Peeves thread. As it serves a similar use case to the What's Bothering You thread, we believe it's best to keep such posts where additional guidelines are in place.

Thank you for sharing your feedback!

An edit was made to the wording in the second point for clarity.

 

[LadyDestani]

Thank you for addressing a few things already, within the last half of the 2nd post here and ‘thread highlights’. These are really appreciated. For these types (and quantities) of ‘official’ updates, sifting through thread highlights can be a little difficult - I’d like to suggest possibly compiling topics that have been already covered into one place - possibly updating the 2nd post? Or an ‘updates’ thread outside of this, where only staff post? Not sure what’s best or appropriate, just a suggestion to keep new information accessible.

That's very doable. It's been a little low on the priority list right now, and I realize we've also been lax about adding the thread highlight to our recent posts too. Those things are all easily corrected when we have time.

Action Item #1: Add Thread Highlights & Link in OP/2nd Post

If a forum member was in the same situation (as staff or not) - would they also be graced with essentially, no consequences for their actions? Do we just have to give enough detail about our personal lives to excuse behaviours? Can I post something wildly inappropriate tomorrow and avoid warnings, bans, and apologies because I’m dealing with xyz like severe depression, undiagnosed ADHD & autism, financial difficulties and substance abuse - which you just have to take my word for? It’s not an excuse or safety blanket, it’s unfair for everyone to handle problematic behaviour like this.

This was in response to Chris' posts (for context). Before I begin: This is how things are done now, but they do not have to stay this way. We'll consider changes. When it comes to posts that are several years old, we currently don't give warnings. We would check the member's post history to see if they were still repeating the behavior. If it was an isolated incident, we'll delete the offending post with a message to the member making sure they understand why it was against the rules. If it's still happening, we'll give the warning for the most current post but link all the problematic ones. Along with the warning, we'll also delete all those posts. The only reason we'd give a warning for a significantly older post is if it was extremely egregious (such as threatening violence) and something that bad would probably come with a ban as well.

Most people don't apologize when they get warnings or bans. They may protest it through CTS and we'll review their case again. I have actually reversed a warning before because I gave it in error. I've never reversed a ban, but I also haven't given many bans. However, saying "it's my x, y, or z" won't change things unless it's an extreme case. They'll keep the warning or the ban that was already handed down. Having those challenges ( ? not sure if that's the right word) is not an excuse, but it does help us frame things in the future when we're interacting with them. Our goal is not to let them get away with anything, but to approach them in different ways based on what they best respond to.

I'm going to pause right there and say what I know many are thinking: We have not been doing a good job with that. I agree.

Action Item #2: Going forward delete ALL posts that break rules or cause harm regardless of how we've dealt with the member.

I don't think it's feasible to go back and remove every discriminatory or inappropriate post made over the last 20 years.

Why have posts called out in this thread as discriminatory or inappropriate not been removed?
We've been letting posts slide all the way around in this thread. Some posts have been rude, some have been inflammatory, some have included discriminatory language, some have targeted and criticized staff members (which is against the current rules). In complete and total honesty, we are a little confused right now about what everybody wants.

You've called out that certain posts were inappropriate and should never have been made. This is fair and we agree. However, when those posts were deleted by the staff member who made them, which is part of our normal process to take them out of public view so they won't harm anyone else, we were accused of sweeping things under the rug. Those posts have now been pasted throughout by members in this thread where anybody, including children, can see them. This is a legitimate question for you all. I'm not trying to be rude or instigate anything. I really just want to know if the expectation is for us to take those down or leave them up for eternity in the Feedback Thread.

 

[LadyDestani]

with all due respect, that rule is a load of authoritarian-esque bunk and should honestly be restructured

I understand not wanting staff to have to deal with harrassment over their unpaid volunteer work or for every decision to be scrutinized, but wholesale barring criticism isn't it

this rule sucks, to put it bluntly. i'm not going to put this one politely as i've been trying to keep the rest of my wording throughout all my participation here. as Lambda said - wholly barring criticism of staff is authoritarian. while we understand staffing is entirely a volunteer position and staff is human as anyone else is and should not be hit with excessive cruelty by members, you are still all at a higher position on this website and have accepted responsibilities involved with those positions, voluntary or no, and you should not be exempt from criticism in any form simply because you are not paid to carry out these responsibilities.

I didn't mean to imply that the rule should remain as is. It's important for us to be able to do our work without fear of reprisal, harassment, and threats. Sadly, those things do happen. However, accepting criticism of our actions is equally important so we can improve everyone's experience on the site.

Action Item #3: Revise and clarify site Rules.

firstly, this may sound nitpicky of me, so i apologise if so. but especially after everything occurring here, word choice is important and this one strikes a chord - you should not be considering changes, as consideration is not a guarantee. changes of some kind do need to be made, not just considered, and it rings hollow at least to me to simply say they will be Considered. again, maybe i'm simply too nitpicky (or perhaps cynical) at this point in the thread, but considering so, so much of this thread has been begging for action to be made and feeling like it's falling on deaf ears... considering doesn't feel like enough.

Word choice is important and consider was a poor choice here. I wanted to get something posted asap, so I wrote that at 3am. I was tired and my phrasing reflects that. We will make changes.

while i understand you are trying to ask a genuine question & it is a sincerely valid point in that the photos should not stay circulating past a certain point, this does very much come across as trying to turn the situation on the people who brought up the criticism to begin with (especially as, again, at least one of the posts was still up until it was brought up in this thread four years after it was made.)

It was not my intent to place any blame. I apologize if it came across that way. It was a sincere question and I'd like to note that I was only referring to the screenshots themselves, not the posts criticizing them.

 

[LadyDestani]

Hi all,

Several of you have spoken up to say that one of my earlier posts where I discussed neurodivergence and controversial content is incorrect, offensive, and ablist. I would like to thank you for pointing this out to me. I apologize for implying in any way that someone who is neurodivergent, mentally ill, or has hidden disabilities should not face consequences for their actions or that they're unable to understand right from wrong when it comes to hateful and prejudiced statements. That was not my intent, but that's how it read. I'm terribly sorry.

I should have been quicker to apologize and address this. I wanted to respond right away once it was pointed out, but I didn't because I was afraid. I was scared that in trying to correct my mistake I was only going to make things worse. I admit that neurodiversity is not an area I have a lot of experience in, so I let my fear get the better of me and kept silent.

However, after it was brought up again in a more recent post, I really felt a need to make things right. I've done some more research on the subject and I hope that I can now properly convey what I intended to say. If I fail again, I trust you to point that out to me.

---

First of all, let me be clear. There is no excuse for homophobia, transphobia, racism, or any other form of prejudice ever. Nobody should be given a free pass for making hateful comments regardless of their circumstances. Blatant discrimination will be met with warnings and bans as deemed necessary. The distinction I failed to make before is only in regards to more subtle and nuanced forms of discrimination. I acknowledge these are just as hurtful as blatant discrimination, but they are often unintentional and it may take time for people to fully understand why what they said or did is wrong. These are the situations, especially when it comes to those who struggle with complex social interactions, where staff might be more lenient and focus on trying to educate the person versus warning them.

Some examples of subtle discrimination are microaggressions and rationalizing discriminatory actions. These types of discrimination will still be against the rules, but they might be dealt with differently.

One thing we have not yet discussed on the staff team is support or enjoyment of problematic properties. This would include things like the Harry Potter universe, which was previously mentioned in this thread. And it's this point where I specifically had neurodivergence in mind when I wrote my prior post. I can recall at least one instance where I witnessed a neurodivergent individual being told they needed to abandon their special interest because it was harmful or because the creator was problematic. They became quite obviously distressed and could not link the negative association with the franchise they loved, at least not in that moment.

These are the types of decisions we need to balance to provide an equally safe environment for all. I'd love to hear from you all if you have any comments or suggestions related to this.

 

[LadyDestani]

Hi all,

I wasn't planning on posting here tonight. I had a long day, it's late, and I'm tired, but I think we all need to be careful with our word choices.

It's very disappointing to hear that another person has felt silenced and/or attacked for opinions they shared in this thread. This is not the first time, it probably won't be the last time, but I think we owe it to each other to try to do better. As staff, we want to hear all opinions, even if they're unpopular, as long as they're made in good faith. It's fine to disagree with the points someone made, but to use violent and threatening language is taking things too far.

I understand it was not intended to be taken literally, but we need to think less about our intentions and more about the impact we're having on the people around us. Everyone just wants to be able to share their thoughts and they shouldn't have to fear speaking up publicly.

I know the cooldown length has people frustrated. I will talk to Jeremy about it the next time he's available.

Please, all I'm asking is to be kind to each other and give everyone a little grace.

 

[Mistreil]

Hi everyone! Sorry for the wait on this, and thanks for your patience! I'm back from vacation now and (sort of) caught up on work stuff, so: the post about Generative AI images has been made!

I think it's been difficult for some to find a time to post in this thread when the active topic is different from one that we want to address, and it's been a bit hard to follow conversations on certain topics so I'm hoping that having a separate thread for specific items will make things easier. This way, it also won't be too much of a distraction from other topics like Jeremy's recent post, either.
(And, similarly, I'd like to ask that all responses regarding GenAI images go into that thread rather than here, so this one can stay focused on the topics on hand.)

 

[Jeremy]

Hi all,

I'd like to cover a couple of the topics that I've been addressing in this thread. This post won't cover everything that I previously listed, but I promise the rest will come soon, once some details are worked out. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the reworking of our rules, and that is also the primary focus of my post tonight. Specifically, I'll summarize some of our plans for both the enforcement and presentation of the rules.

Our current rules have been in place for several years with some updates made every now and then, and while they've served us well during this time, they're overdue for a larger overhaul. This is something that will take careful consideration, planning, and writing over multiple months. In the meantime, hopefully, this post will help explain the approach we're looking to take with certain topics. We'll also stop hosting forum events until we complete this project in order to direct our full attention to it.

I've included a link to a survey that will help us consider community feedback about the approach we take, as well as some other topics that have come up in this thread.

The list below doesn't cover everything, but I've outlined five of the areas we're working on. This also doesn't touch on discussions of media created by problematic individuals or companies, but there is a question about this in the survey. AI-generated text masquerading as discussion is a recent topic here, so we haven't had a chance to discuss it thoroughly, but my instinct is that it has no place on TBT (enforcement is a more complicated topic). AI-generated images will be covered separately by Mistreil tomorrow.

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1) Increased content removal accompanied by official explanations.

Individuals who clearly and intentionally advocate against human rights are currently and will continue to be banned. Expanding on this further, other forms of problematic phrasing will be removed with an explanation, and subsequent posts will be monitored more closely.

Considerations:

• We'll spend time on determining the type of content that will be removed and preparing some prewritten explanations. Our goal is to help members understand how their phrasing may come across, while also being faster to find hateful individuals who attempt to hide among regular members.

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2) For minor concerns, fewer warnings, more removals with explanations.

This was mentioned in my first post here, and the idea is to avoid worrying members about being in trouble when we're actually just trying to communicate something to them in an efficient manner. Even though we've renamed some warnings as "reminders," many people still don't like that it's coming from the same warning system.

This would apply to things such as directing someone to another board, censor bypassing, low post quality, etc.

Considerations:

• Warnings are logged for us, while simple removals are not. Repeated behavior is sometimes intentional, so we'd like to track these, which will require software changes.

Extending the software to allow us to track the removal of content will also help with point #1. While this is background functionality that members can't see, it's going to be prioritized over more front-facing features.

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3) Further limiting the type of content that can be discussed on the forum.

a) Ban on political and religious discussions.

This is a topic that we have been considering for a while, and we have been going back and forth about it because it's more complicated than it may seem. Here was our previous statement about this rule change when we didn't plan to implement it:

There has been debate about whether or not we should ban the discussion of politics and religion in general to avoid controversial topics. Right now, we have no plans to do this.

We considered it as one of several options because gaming forums are not staffed to moderate these types of posts. They sometimes require an intimate knowledge of the subject matter that we may not have. We are often pressed for time as it is and having to research a politician, a law, or a court ruling that we’ve never heard of can seem daunting.

However, politics are increasingly entangled in social issues, human rights, and can have a significant impact on someone’s life. Likewise, religion is deeply personal and often enmeshed in a person’s thoughts and feelings. Deciding where to draw the line is incredibly complicated and probably more of a pain to moderate than just allowing them to exist on the forum.

Considerations:

• Statements in support of human rights will be allowed regardless of the rule, so we must decide where to draw the line, as LadyDestani said.
• Adjacent topics, such as statements about going to vote, will be allowed. Instead, this rule is meant to reduce debate and discussion of political issues, and we'll spend time to make sure that this is clearly described.
• Discussing real issues is seen as important to some- this is the world we live in, and sometimes it's tough for people to confront these topics, but they're a part of life. On the other hand, many people would point out that there are enough spaces on today's internet for these types of discussions to take place, so TBT should offer an escape from them. This is covered by one of the survey questions.

b) Ban on political rhetoric, slogans, and campaigning.

Similar to above, this would mean, for example, that you can't support a political candidate/campaign in your signature.

Considerations:

• Human rights slogans (e.g., BLM) would still be allowed.
• We would also like to be careful about being too limiting against some imagery that is heavily linked to identity for some people.

c) Ban on discussion of sexual activity.

The forum is already "PG-13" or stricter, so this will further restrict this type of discussion. Similarly, there is the ESRB Teen rating for games. If you're not familiar with these American rating systems but are interested in their meanings, I've included links that provide more details. While movie/gaming ratings are useful for comparison, our community rules don't need to (and already don't) match them.

Considerations:

• We must decide the level of sexual references that should be allowed on the forum. This is partially addressed with one of the survey questions.
• Discussions of media (movies, games, etc.) that contain sexual relationships wouldn't be banned.

d) Ban on asking for or giving medical advice.

We have removed these types of posts before, so this will make the rule official. Giving medical advice is better left to professionals.

e) Ban on discussions about recreational drugs, alcohol, and smoking.

Considerations:

• It could be worthwhile for the rules to leave room for support for quitting smoking, etc., within reason.
• Discussions of media (movies, games, etc.) that depict drugs and alcohol wouldn't be banned.

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4) Increased enforcement of rules for off-site behavior in TBT-adjacent spaces.

Depending on severity, action may be taken based on off-site behavior when appropriate proof is provided. This can include: bullying, harassment, threats, hate speech, unsolicited sexual comments, using other platforms to organize on-site targeting of a specific member, and other violations of the site rules.

This would not apply to, for example, interactions with someone in another community or offline, and they also happen to be a TBT member. However, this could apply to playing Animal Crossing online after arranging the meeting on the forum, something that comes from a community dedicated to TBT itself, receiving a DM on Discord about TBT, etc.

Considerations:

• Some interactions may not always be simple to show/prove, depending on where and how they happened.
• When considering these cases, we'll determine what type of interactions are TBT-related or in "TBT-adjacent spaces." If two people originally met on TBT, it doesn't mean that the TBT rules can be applied to all of their off-site interactions.

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5) More elaboration and specific examples for already-existing rules.

One of the things I mentioned in a previous post is the goal to elaborate on the rules and include examples for what is and isn't allowed in some cases. For example, what would be considered rude behavior enforced under the "respecting others" category? What would be considered bullying of another member? What type of statements would fall under the prohibited content rules? Etc.

Considerations:

• This could easily be the most time-consuming part of this rules update. We'll start by determining which rules will benefit most from more details and/or examples.

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Finally, I'd like to touch on one more topic since there's a related question in the survey. TBT's ignore functionality comes from the XenForo software, and other forum platforms, such as vBulletin and Invision, work similarly. This means that ignoring users works the same way here as it does on most other forums, and the software designers likely did it this way due to the way traditional message boards are structured with threaded discussions. That being said, we're able to make some software changes on our own (within reason), so we'd like to hear your thoughts about this in the survey. However, keep in mind that software changes aren't something that can happen quickly.

Here is the link to the survey, which will also earn you a few bells if you don't mind including your username. Thanks!

 

[Jeremy]

Hey all, let's stop arguing about events, please! Even if you think someone is just trolling, it's obviously best not to engage, so whether the goal is to be welcoming to new members or discourage trolling, the approach would be the same. Either way, let's move on from this topic for now. As I previously mentioned, we're taking a break from hosting official events so we can instead focus on other projects that will have a longer-lasting impact on the community. Some of you may be surprised by the number of hours it takes to host an event. I can say from personal experience that they've caused the rest of my life to be put on hold for a long period of time - we're talking many hundreds of hours! While TBT may be known for its events, it's not a bad thing to take a breather now and then to reflect on other things that need to be addressed. We've had 50 events since 2020, so we'll be okay taking a break for now. In addition to the overall time commitment, we're also a bit shorthanded with multiple staff members on hiatus. And yes, we would like to add more moderators in the near future!

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While I'm posting here, I'd like to quickly go over a few other topics. First, the ads have been restored today after our ad company told me that the problematic ad has been blocked. Not exactly exciting news, but please let me know if it happens again.

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Thank you to everyone who filled out our recent survey. If you included your username, the bells should have appeared a few minutes ago. The survey helps us better understand the community's feelings on a few topics, such as the ignore functionality and feedback in general.

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As I mentioned in my last post, there are still at least two topics I said I would cover here. The first is the recent ban of a member, which resulted in many questions. I have not posted more about this because he ended up reaching out about arranging a discussion with the staff, which has started but not yet concluded. I thought it could be more productive to wait for the discussion to play out before talking more about it here. Early on, we decided not to discuss the ban too specifically in public because of the other people involved and simply because it's not something we do. Instead, we can go over the staff's process and decision-making that led to the ban (or bans in general). For this post, I'll answer the general questions that @rosetti had previously asked about banning. While some of them have been covered by other posts since then, I believe these may have yet to be answered:

At what point is an investigation appropriate into a member’s posting history?

There's not exactly an on/off switch when it comes to moderating, so history is something that would always be considered, especially when an official warning is sent. For example, if a member receives a warning for spamming after they were warned for the same thing a few days earlier, it would start to paint a picture that they may be struggling to follow the staff's direction about it. Sometimes, this is occurring over a much longer period. If the same problem occurred once or twice a year ago, it may not factor into the actions we take. However, if it occurred dozens of times over a long period, it may be recognized as a pattern like in the first example.

Do you have the time to look at every member’s posting history?

No, so there will be something that causes us to do so if we're not already familiar with their history. For example, something that warrants a warning, as I mentioned above. The warning history alone is typically (ideally) enough to show a history without digging through tons of other posts.

When and why does this act become a priority?

I probably covered this one above, but we're looking at the warning history of a member when something about their behavior comes up. To get an even bigger picture, we may skim through their post history if they already have an extensive warning history and we're considering further action.

If historic posts contribute a ban extension - why is this not applied to everyone - does an apology just make everything okay?

It does apply to everyone, but I should reiterate that having a few warnings from a while ago won't typically be taken into consideration. Even if you have dozens of previous warnings, if they're very old, with a long period of active and unproblematic history since, they won't necessarily be taken into consideration as much as a consistent pattern of behavior. Escalating to a ban happens when we feel nothing is changing after communicating our concerns. So would a sincere apology help? Possibly a bit, if we think the member is serious about correcting the thing they were warned or banned for.

Is this act of review not just fishing for a reason to extend a ban?

I assume this is about looking through post history as opposed to warning history. This is not something we normally do since the warnings usually cover members' actions, and how we've tried to communicate to them about their actions. If we feel like we need to review unwarned posts, it's probably because we're trying to be thorough before taking further action or because we're worried that posts may have been missed (unseen or unreported). The latter would typically apply to cases where the member is newer, so doesn't have a long history on the site, but has raised red flags with potentially problematic content. These are cases where we'd actually like to increase our review of post history because posts can sometimes go unreported.

How long back do you go into a user’s history - a year, 5 years, 1 month?

I mentioned this a bit with the first question, but this is typically already going to be outlined by warning history. If we have to look through the actual posts for some reason, I don't imagine that we'd spend a long time closely looking through all of them one by one. Instead, this process is going to start by looking at the list of warnings to see if there's a pattern of unchanging behavior. The big thing here is that if we feel we've been trying to communicate an issue to a member but the issue keeps happening, we are going to start considering the next step. No one's looking through random members' posts to dig up dirt, but even if something was uncovered from a while ago, we're not necessarily going to hold it against you. Except in very extreme/dangerous/obvious cases, our first goal is to communicate and allow chances to work with the moderators to change course in order to fit with the community and its rules.

If a user makes multiple reports against someone instead of using the ignore feature, doesn’t that create a bias for staff? As they’re now actively listening for things that may not be there?

We take every report with a grain of salt in the sense that it's just a way to highlight content. As if we came across the post on our own, we'll look into it ourselves and make our own decision, which is sometimes that no action needs to be taken. Reporting is very useful for us because we can't participate in every discussion, so it simply lets us know that something should be read.

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Another topic I said I would discuss here is the possibility of adding a dark theme for the site. While preparing the previous survey, I realized this is something that will need its own dedicated survey. There are many factors to consider in terms of a dark theme and how everyone would like to see one implemented here. For example, which elements are darker, are we talking full dark background with light text, just a slightly darker version of the current theme, etc.? A proper theme, at least in the way I'm envisioning it, could be years away, so instead, we want to consider making smaller adjustments that are feasible to implement in the meantime. The goal is to help people who find the site to be too harsh on their eyes at night. That being said, this will still take some time to work on, especially because we have a few other projects at the moment. I will post another survey regarding this topic in the near future.

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Finally, I'd like to talk about feedback itself. I understand a lot of people have been upset by the atmosphere in this thread, with a few suggesting it should be closed or deleted. The survey helped point this out further, with less than a third of respondents saying they feel comfortable posting here. Our current plan is to transition away from this thread in place of individual feedback threads (like the thread about banning AI from The Museum). We would instead add a feedback prefix to Bell Tree HQ that can be used by members to make suggestions, or by staff to talk about these specific issues. Individual threads would allow topics to stay organized and make it easier for staff to respond to.

For the time being, however, we would like to continue using this thread until we feel like we've addressed the topics we said we would address. Some of the topics from the beginning of this thread have been answered in pieces or may be less of a priority at this time, so please feel free to let us know which topics are important to you, and we'll either try our best to address them here or include them in a new thread.

In addition to splitting feedback into multiple threads, we also recognize that it has been challenging for us to effectively moderate this thread in the last few months. I hope we, as a community, can do better to make people feel comfortable sharing ideas, even if they're contrary to other opinions. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we'll be looking to add new moderators in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

 

[LadyDestani]

Hi everyone,

I want to acknowledge that there was yet another troll attack today, once again targeting at daringred_. This makes two troll accounts created for the sole purpose of attacking her and one account created to attack -Lumi- within a very short time. Not only were these accounts intended as personal attacks towards these members, they also took aim at their sexuality making them homophobic as well. We take both of these issues very seriously. The accounts have been deleted along with all of their posts, but despite that we as a staff team recognize how upsetting this must be for the individuals involved and everyone on the forum who has had to witness these occurrences.

The trolls have not only appeared in threads. As Oblivia mentioned previously, they have, and last I heard still were, sending emails through the Contact Us link. They also submitted multiple responses to the recent survey, but we were easily able to identify and disregard their answers.

I'm going to address a few things so everyone can be on the same page. First, we're fairly certain that most, if not all, of these trolls are originating from the social sphere of a certain member who was permanently banned from this site about a year and a half ago for severely transphobic behavior. I won't mention that person's name, not out of any desire to protect them, but because the acknowledgement would likely only feed their ego. This person and their friend group harassed and made real world threats towards Chris for simply existing. They are still disturbingly obsessed with this forum based on social media posts that many of you have brought to our attention and they have friends who have publicly stated they enjoy trolling this site. One member known to associate with this group made a post aimed at daringred_ shortly after the first troll was dealt with. We have strong evidence to indicate that they were behind that particular account, so they were permanently banned as well.

There are different kinds of troll/alt accounts emerging. This could potentially indicate multiple sources, meaning different people behind accounts who may or may not have the same goals. Some are more obvious, others less so. The types of troll accounts where they attempt to fit in and act like a genuine member while subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, stirring up drama are the most frustrating from a moderation perspective. They disguise themselves just well enough to delay our action because we don't want to drive away innocent new members.

On that note, there has been a lot of suspicion around new accounts lately, and while it's certainly reasonable to be cautious in the face of everything that's happened recently, I would like to point out that calling a potential new member a troll or saying they're speaking or acting like a troll is highly insulting if they are, in fact, not a troll. If you're in doubt, please report the individual and let the staff team figure it out. It may take us some time to come to a definitive conclusion, but we will take it seriously. In fact, we're keeping a closer eye on all new members currently just to try to get a handle on this situation.

With that said, I am temporarily locking this thread. This is absolutely not intended to silence feedback. You may still share your views through CTS, DM, Contact Us, or by creating individual threads in HQ based on specific topics. We plan to move much of the conversation to separate, topic-based, feedback threads soon anyway as this thread has become unwieldy and it's easy for things to get lost in the jumble. I'm taking this action because the Feedback Thread has been the main target, where the trolls have a spotlight, and I'm hoping by cutting this avenue off for a while they will be discouraged from posting further. We're looking into the possibility of requiring accounts to reach a certain age or post count before posting here, but that's not something that can be flipped on like a switch. It will take a little time to build, if it's possible.

I'm not sure when we'll reopen this thread. I'm wary of giving a date as I'm sure the trolls will be waiting for it, but we'll keep you informed.

Again, this is not meant to halt the conversation, so please reach out to us if there's anything you'd like to discuss.