Moonbeam

I, too, have been on forums since the internet was in diapers. I've never seen or heard of any forum moderated in this manner you're describing, or heard anyone indicate that they wanted to run their forum that way. This isn't meant to demean you or suggest that wanting what you want is wrong. I was trying to indicate before that this is not an approach that is even remotely popular enough that anyone would be offering an out-of-the-box system to support it. There would be no market for it. You seem already to have conceded that with your admission that none of the major forum providers offer this as a ready-made solution. Again, this is why I said a customized solution was your best (and probably only) bet.

It sounds to me like you're planning an incredibly labor-intensive operation that is... well, unlike anything I've ever heard of. If you have an army of mods standing by waiting to work in shifts to jump on each and every single post to immediately evaluate it for offensive content in real time so that those that pass can appear "Immediately," that's really impressive. This is far enough outside of a normal approach and a unique-enough use case that I'm going to guess that buying a custom solution is probably your best bet.

Other people think so, too!

If you're only looking to use the reactions to add flavor and not as a component for gauging "positive" and "negative" responses to a user's content, I could see this being useful. If the point is to use reactions as a form of social pressure (where the goal is to get positive responses rather than negative), the larger the list of reactions you have, the more you dilute that purpose.

It seems like it's a choice between keep everyone in the dark and deal with the vast majority being underwhelmed by the eventual release that addresses things that weren't even problems, accidentally breaks a lot of stuff communities count on, and fails to solve some very real issues that IBP didn't know about because they didn't ask... Or releasing a roadmap, getting some important feedback, then dealing with some backlash if things don't get delivered on time. The second scenario probably results in a lot more good will.

If it helps, I don't see this as the IPB team making any promises. I see it as them treating us like the stakeholders we are and making a good faith effort to find out what our actual needs are, rather than assuming they know what we need and developing a list of improvements that may not even address some of the problems that already exist.

It's related to the fact that there are numerous issues related to the puzzling inflexibility of the clubs system that force us all to buy plugins or commission customizations or beg for a tweak. Jordan's last comment was a his second reference that I've seen to the fact that the IPB team is planning a sweeping overhaul of the club system, so I wanted to address that by pointing out that telling us what they currently have on that plan would be helpful. That way, if there are things missing that are huge pain points for us, we can raise those as needed additions to that list. I was not commenting at all on your specific issue.

You definitely didn't understand me correctly and I have no idea what brings you to such a conclusion. My comment is about the twice-mentioned "sweeping improvements" that IPB is planning and a plea for them to include us, as stakeholders, in the development of that plan.

I'll reiterate and expand on a comment I made yesterday on another thread: it would be really good for us to have an outline of what is on IPB's radar regarding sweeping club improvements, because as I'm perusing various threads in this community, a recurring theme seems to be that new releases often include solutions to problems that no one is actually concerned about or that they've already solved in other ways (meaning that the new release will trigger a scramble to adjust by the community owners), while leaving unaddressed the real pain points that are actually causing real headaches. So if we could see what items are included at this stage of IPB's club improvement plan, that would give us time to a) evaluate whether their improvements are actually going to fix the real problems we're having, b) prepare a plan for the changes the improvements will bring and the customizations we have in place that the improvements will upset, and c) try to convince IPB to add the improvements we actually need and want that have not already made it into their sweeping plan.

You should copy-paste Joel R's entire post above this one as a blueprint for that gamification effort.

Yes, but I was responding to Jordan's announcement that there's a plan in the works for a club overhaul, so I was asking for an outline of said overhaul in that context. Just seemed like the logical and appropriate place to mention it.

It would be really wonderful if we could get an overview of what will be included in the "full sweep."

I'm sorry I missed this. I love a good "Don't you know who I am?" encounter.

It's not a one-off issue. I have run up against this same problem in varying levels of intensity at literally every step of the way as I try to make the software work for our needs.

Basically, a community that enforces its standards fairly. A moderation team that is sensitive to nuances, so that they can recognize when a member is engaging in bullying and harassment that isn't necessarily as obvious as a verbal bludgeoning. Not mistaking bluntness and direct communication for rudeness, and stepping in to call that out when someone in the community takes it that way. Not conflating disagreement or refutations with personal attacks, and stepping in to call that out when a member is making such a conflation.. Not allowing marginalized members to be intimidated into silence. These are the types of things that can ruin a member's experience in a community, and they occur with disturbing frequency.

Speaking for myself (while cleverly hijacking your exchange with @Davyc), I find that what I'm usually missing - whether in trying to follow the guides or in getting advice from other users - is that I lack the "connector" knowledge that will allow me to implement the advice. I know a smattering of self-taught stuff about website making and administration, HTML, CSS, and a few other things one will find in a tech-knowledge junk drawer. However... I majored in music. What I know about this kind of thing is generally stuff I cobbled together in the pursuit of trying to complete past projects with no money and no one to learn from. So when I describe what I'm trying to achieve, I get answers that are entirely accurate and reasonable, but they tend to assume that my knowledge base has a direct connection from point A to point B, when in fact, there's a sinkhole somewhere between those two points for me. Actual footage of my attempts to fill in the blanks and make the solutions work: So... yeah, I forgot what I was trying to ask for. I guess, ways to help people succeed with customizing their forums when they don't have quite the right level of knowledge to just pick up and run with the stuff that's in the guides?

Whew - this is a big question, and the answers are multiple and complex. But I would also argue that this is the wrong question to ask - at least, it's asking the wrong first question, which really should be: Why is this community toxic? Followed by, Has the community management accidentally contributed to this toxicity in some way? Because the communities that I've seen that were toxic generally got that way because of inconsistent enforcement of stated community standards, and/or because they tended to turn a blind eye to member dynamics that amounted to bullying. Often, they turned that blind eye because members of the leadership team were among those engaging in the bullying, but most often, it was because they were allowing personal relationships with the bullying parties to color how they viewed the bullies' actions. So the first step is to decipher the true sources of the toxicity, if possible, and to resolve to make the moderation of the community more impartial and to stop enabling the bullies. This is really hard, because it requires a willingness to admit past errors in leadership and a resolve to correct them. This is why I said, in my initial comment, that striving to make a community more just is actually a better goal than trying to make it kind. It's impossible to sow kindness if people are being marginalized and bullied. Then, I'd say the next step is to look at your community guidelines and revise them as needed, then require every member to affirm them. Make it clear that these are the new expectations of the standard of behavior. But the key element here is to recognize that the members that have been marginalized aren't going to just suddenly get over their sense of aggrievement overnight. Be careful that in your push to clear up the toxicity, you don't end up further punishing the people who've been the primary victims of the original causes of that toxicity.

Sure, but nobody said that the choices were "force people to check this box promising that this comment is kind" OR "dystopian hellscape where members flame one another without consequence." Once the novelty of it wears off, I don't think the "kindness check box" will effect any noticeable positive behavioral change on the part of the users. They will cease to pay attention after a pretty short period of time and will either just ignore it as just one of the steps they have to take to post their comment, or feel irritated that this thing pops up each and every time they comment. Completely agree with the rest of your comment. My own earlier comment was meant to reflect that imposing measures such as the checkbox idea doesn't get to the core of what makes a membership base ill-behaved, unkind, or disrespectful. There needs to be some deep reflection on the community culture and - most importantly - how the community management is contributing to it, both intentionally and inadvertently.

In my experience with online communities, the overt adoption or promotion of "kindness" or "welcoming" as a cultural attribute generally ends up being largely performative (regardless of how sincere the original impulse is) and often results in a passive-aggressive suppression of one or more parts of the community population. This is generally because when "kindness" or "being nice" is the focus of the culture, the tendency is to consider any breath of discord as a violation of the social norm, provoking a backlash that effectively prevents or discourages people from raising legitimate concerns and issues. In such communities, there's also often a select few members who somehow manage to skirt the "kindness" doctrine without majority censure, but when someone finally has had enough of their harassment and speaks out, that's when the "kindness" police finally step in and spread the fiction that "both sides" are responsible and tell everyone to chill out. The thread gets locked and the "niceness" of the atmosphere is restored, but not before setting (or more likely, reinforcing) a lot of precedents and making it clear just how deep the "kindness" really runs and the fact that it's more performative than a reflection of the true community dynamic. The real interest is in the skin-deep appearance that people are being kind. In short... I don't think a nuisance checkbox will accomplish anything but to make you believe you've done something to further your kindness initiative. Making a community kind requires a lot of deeper thinking and effort than this, and a better goal would be to make your community more just. A just community is inherently a kinder one.

I appreciate your help! Here's how we envision the process: GM posts a recruitment post on a forum for that purpose that everyone on the site can access. The post will include details about game system, setting, story premise tone, whether it's narrative- or combat-focused, commitment level (post frequency expectations, etc.) - any relevant information that will convey what this GM expects of players and what players can expect from the experience. Prospective players submit an application to indicate interest, demonstrate an understanding of the expectations, and submit a very high-level character concept. GM evaluates applications and selects those who best meet their needs. GM creates the game (club) and invites accepted players to it, and the group begins discussions about the game and the character group they'd like to create. Based on the group's discussion, players create characters and submit them to the game. GM approves (adds) the characters to the game. Some relevant facts to explain why we've designed the process this way: GMs might decide to create their game (club) before recruiting players, but many will not. A lot of them will wait to see if there is sufficient response to the recruitment thread before going to that trouble. So the application process needs to be separate from the game (club) system. With that in mind, it's possible that we could just forego a formal or custom solution to the application process and just have interested members PM their apps to the GM. The only problem with that is that if the GM has more than one recruitment thread going, keeping the responses collated to the correct game might be a hassle for them. Also, it wouldn't guarantee that the applicants are answering the questions the GM wants answered. We'd like the default status of games (clubs) to be "open," to allow members to see how specific GMs run games and get a feel for players they might like to play with or invite to game they run. We're open to the idea of letting everyone "join" an open game as a means of following it, but we want to restrict game play and possibly other levels of activity to just the GM and players. Currently, it seems impossible to give a GM that level of control over their game without giving them the godlike power of an administrator.

@Morrigan The problem we're running into is that there are kind of two different "approvals" involved. The first is approving a player as being a good fit for the game being offered. We want to have an application where the prospective player can answer some questions and describe, in general and very brief terms, the character concept they're considering. The GM would then select from the applicants the ones that they feel would make the best group for the game. Then, the accepted players would work together in character creation, and that's when the Character Manager would be utilized. Players would then submit their finished character for GM's approval for the character to be added to the game.

My site wants to offer a process for club owners to use to select the members for their clubs. It's a play-by-post roleplaying game site, and for us, clubs are actually games. So we're creating a template process by which the game owner advertises their prospective game with relevant information and solicits applications to join. We'd like to offer a standard application form that the prospective player can fill out and submit to the game owner, who can then decide which applicants to accept. Currently, it appears that the only way to prevent people from joining at will is to have a closed club - not idea for our overall purposes, as we'd like game owners to have the option for their game to be readable by people not actually playing. We also want to offer the ability to put some applicants on a waiting list for a short period of time, in case a player leaves the game early on. The game owner could then select a replacement from that list and tender an invitation. If you've made it this far, thanks for the tenacity! Here are the things I (thing I am) asking: Is there a way to impose a joining approval process on a club that is "open? If not, can we customize the approval process for joining a closed club to include a customized application? Is there an easy way to create an application form to join a club? Or will we need to buy a plugin to make that happen? Can we build some kind of waitlist functionality? We want inclusion to be at the game owner's discretion, so opt-in from applicants with approval rights for the game owner. Thanks for taking the time to read all this.