Proposed DDO Community Guidelines Changes (February 2014)

[Cordovan]

UPDATE: This work has been completed. Thank you everyone for your feedback and input. Some changes were made to the Community Guidelines. The Community Guidelines can be found here (https://www.ddo.com/en/community/community-guidelines). Here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435781-New-DDO-Community-Guidelines?p=5253346&viewfull=1#post5253346) is a post explaining the changes from the original presentation. Thanks!

###

Soon we will be revising our DDO Community Guidelines to largely match a recent update to the Community Guidelines implemented by our friends at Lord of the Rings Online. As some folks may know, both games have shared our Community Guidelines for years, and we plan to bring this update to DDO within the next week or so.

In general, you will find that the rules have not changed. In a few cases we have added specificity to the Community Guidelines to clarify what kinds of violations can lead to which kind of infraction. We found over on LOTRO that players largely preferred these new guidelines due to their increased clarity and readability, but please give us your feedback as well.

One relatively minor change (but something people who have run into this will appreciate) is that when you receive an infraction or warning under the revised rules, we will more clearly explain what the violation is, and there should no longer be instances where text is cut off.

Without further ado, here is the text:

Community Guidelines

The Turbine Community Team strives to foster the community by bringing you up to date information, engaging in discussions, and providing a welcoming environment where players can share their opinions, offer suggestions, and promote their guild, server, and in-game events to each other.

We have created the following guidelines for players to use while participating on the official DDO Community Sites. They are by no means all inclusive. We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines.

Violations of the community guidelines can lead to disciplinary action against your forum account, including but not limited to the permanent removal of your forum privileges and/or game account (Banning). Because every situation is different, all enforcement and application of the community guidelines are at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team. These rules are subject to change without notice; please review them regularly.



1. One person, One Account.
You are permitted one Community account for posting on the Community Sites. Players who are found posting from more than one account will be asked to choose an account for use while posting, and posting privileges will be removed from all other accounts. Additional or secondary accounts created or used for the purpose of trolling, circumventing a ban, or otherwise violating these Community Guidelines may result in the permanent ban of any and all associated Community and Game accounts, at the Turbine Community Team's discretion.

2. Harassing, Insulting and Abusive posts.
We do not tolerate any comments that are abusive or insulting, involve name calling, or attempt to disparage, harass, defraud, threaten or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players, guilds, Fansites, groups, the developers, community team, Turbine/WB employees, or other companies. Doing so is considered a serious offense and will not be tolerated.

3. Grammar Police.
Any post or comment made with the intention of embarrassing another player based on spelling, typos, or grammatical errors is not permitted. Not everyone speaks the same language. Keep in mind that the person you are addressing may not be a native speaker.

4. Calling out other players.
Calling out other players for their actions in game, or attempting to shame them for actions you deem unacceptable, will not be tolerated. If you feel someone has acted in a way that is inappropriate or violates our terms of use, please use the ‘report this post’ option or contact a GM in game to report in-game behaviors.

5. Profanity.
The use of profanity is not permitted on our forums. The forums will filter out specific words, but you are responsible for all words you use whether they are filtered or not. Please do not attempt to circumvent this filter with creative spellings, use of special characters or other means.

6. Derailing/disruption of official discussion threads.
Official threads are created by the Community, Development, and other teams to gather feedback and create a focused discussion around a given topic. Attempting to derail these threads by posting unrelated comments or bringing other issues into the discussion is not permitted.

7. Fabricated and misleading information.
Deliberately posting fabricated or misleading information about another member of the community, other companies, or Turbine/WB or its employees will not be tolerated. We consider this a very serious offense.

8. Provoking, Trolling, and “baiting.”
Threads or posts that are intended to create a strong negative or emotional reaction, provoke conflict, or are made simply for ‘shock value’ are considered trolling. Debating a topic on the merits or holding a strong opinion are acceptable, however making posts to provoke conflict or incite, bait, or mock others who disagree with you are not.

9. “Self Defense” posts.
Please do not respond to attempts to provoke, troll or bait you. Posts you feel violate the community guidelines should be reported using the ‘Report this post’ button. Responding in kind usually results in both parties having actions taken against their accounts.

10. Spam.
Advertisements for any good, service, or site that are not directly related to Dungeons & Dragons Online™ is not permitted and will be removed. Posts promoting sites, goods, and services deemed inappropriate will also be removed as spam. In addition, “Cross posting” without permission, “Bumping” and “Necro posting” are considered forms of spamming and are not permitted.

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

12. Reposting and Quoting.
Do not re-post or quote any materials which violate the Community Guidelines; replies that include quotes of violating material posted by another player may be removed, even if the reply itself contained no offensive content. This includes re-posting a thread or topic which has been previously closed or removed by the Turbine Community Team.

13. Discussion of Disciplinary or Moderations Actions.
We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

14. Impersonation.
Impersonating another community member, guild, famous person, or any Turbine employee is forbidden. This is considered a very serious offense and “it was a joke” is not a valid defense. Impersonation includes, but is not limited to, using images or signatures to suggest you are an employee or any person other than yourself. Making statements claiming you are someone other than yourself, forging, editing, or otherwise modifying posts of a moderator, Turbine employee, or forum member (i.e., “fixed that for you” style edits in quoted texts that change the wording or meaning of a post in an attempt to embarrass or misrepresent the original posters comments) is not permitted.

15. Non-Disclosure Agreements.
You may not post, repost, or link to any information covered under a Non-disclosure agreement (from any source), including but not limited to spoilers, screenshots, and videos.

16. TOS, COC, EULA.
Users must not violate, or promote the violation of, Turbine’s terms of service, codes of conduct or end user license agreements. This includes, but is not limited to, the posting of materials or comments that call out possible exploits or encourage others to participate in exploiting game miscues and errors.

17. Copyrights.
You may not upload or transmit copyrighted material without the express consent of the copyright holder.

18. Illegal activity.
You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws, or regulations.

19. Personal information and Private conversations.
You may not post the personally identifiable information of another user, including but not limited to their real name, address, phone number, email address, or links to personal websites without the express consent of that user. You may not re-post Private Messages, emails, or other private or personal communications of others on the Community Sites without the express consent of the sender.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

21. Inappropriate content.
You may not use, distribute, or spotlight, or post links to sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially, nationally, ethnically offensive content or language, or other content deemed inappropriate at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

24. Inactivity.
The DDO forums and web sites are aimed at providing a valuable service to players of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and as such are meant to be used by active players of the game. Moderators may remove forum access to inactive players at their discretion, if it is deemed necessary to promote the overall goals of the web site. (One example would be if a player is no longer playing the game and using their community account to violate the community guidelines.)





Understanding Warnings, Infractions, and Bans.

Infractions are individual actions taken against your account.
Infractions do not expire.
Each infraction has a point value known as infraction points.

All of the above rules may have one or more severity levels that may result in more or less infraction points being awarded per infraction. A minor violation of a rule may only result in one infraction point being issued while a major violation could result in a 20 point infraction and immediate ban. Infractions typically carry, 1, 2, 3, 5, or 20 infraction points based on severity of the violation.

Some infraction points may expire 30, 60, 90 days or more after being issued. Severe violations can result in points that do not expire, and chronically violating the same rule can extend point expiration time.
Please note: Warnings are not counted against your maximum infraction limit.

Infractions never expire and lead to permanent bans as follows:

• Free to Play accounts: 2 infractions.
• VIP and Premium Accounts: 10 Infractions.

Infraction points may lead to temporary suspensions or permanent bans as follows:

• 5 Active Points: 1 Day
• 10 Active points: 3 day suspension
• 15 Active points: 7 day suspension
• 17 Active points: 3 Month Suspension
• 18 Active Points: 6 Month Suspension
• 20 points (active or otherwise): Permanent

The Community Team reserves the right to assign temporary and permanent bans at will based upon the severity of an infraction.

* Automatic bans based on the number of infractions take all infractions into account, regardless of their Active or Expired status. If an account was above the limit when this change was implemented (August 2010) it will be banned if any further infractions are issued against it.

All visitors to the Community Sites are logged by IP address. We may occasionally ban a user by their IP address. Further abuse by users who have been IP banned may result in an abuse report to the user's internet service provider.



Appealing a Ban:

If your Community account has been banned and you feel this ban is in error or unjustified, ban appeals may be sent through our support page (http://support.turbine.com/ics/support/ticketnewwizard.asp?style=classic&deptID=24001&). (Choose DDO as the game, DDO Community/Forum Support as the support team, and then choose the appropriate option.) Please include your Community account name in all correspondence.

[cripeyy]

wow, disappointing. But at least I can save the $400/month I average on DDO if I receive a ban for one of these things :)

[Ovrad]

Infractions do not expire.

[...]

Some infraction points may expire 30, 60, 90 days or more after being issued. Severe violations can result in points that do not expire, and chronically violating the same rule can extend point expiration time.

Aren't those statements contradictory?


Also, I assume bans are only for the forums and not in-game, but it might be a good idea to clarify that.

[SirValentine]

Aren't those statements contradictory?


The POINTS may expire, but the INFRACTIONS don't.

So if you had a low-point infraction every few months, you might never accumulate enough points for a points-based ban, but you would eventually accumulate enough infractions for an infraction-based ban.

[Cordovan]

Aren't those statements contradictory?


Also, I assume bans are only for the forums and not in-game, but it might be a good idea to clarify that.

The total infraction limit does not expire, so infractions received will count towards that limit indefinitely. However, infraction points can expire. We always have the ability to escalate a forum ban for account-related action if necessary, although it is thankfully rarely necessary.

[Teh_Troll]

8. Provoking, Trolling, and “baiting.”

Now that just ain't fair . . .

[H8Tank]

Now that just ain't fair . . .

Srsly. You mastered that last one....

[kierg10]

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

very strongly disagree with this one.

I feel like if someone wants to say goodbye to their server, as they have run with them for years, and they find it easier to make a post on the forum rather than sending many people individual tells, why not?

[stoopid_cowboy]

Now that just ain't fair . . .

No hjeals for joo!!!

Wait, is this a baiting post?

[Havok.cry]

very strongly disagree with this one.

I feel like if someone wants to say goodbye to their server, as they have run with them for years, and they find it easier to make a post on the forum rather than sending many people individual tells, why not?

I agree. How else are we suppose to ask them for their stuff? That's a time honored tradition here.

[HungarianRhapsody]

2. Harassing, Insulting and Abusive posts.
We do not tolerate any comments that are abusive or insulting, involve name calling, or attempt to disparage, harass, defraud, threaten or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players, guilds, Fansites, groups, the developers, community team, Turbine/WB employees, or other companies. Doing so is considered a serious offense and will not be tolerated.

Can we count on you to remove and discipline Harrassing, Insulting and Abusive posts that are in support of Turbine as well as those that are opposed to some thing/things that Turbine has done? There is a perception that moderation for this item has not been even handed in the past.


15. Non-Disclosure Agreements.
You may not post, repost, or link to any information covered under a Non-disclosure agreement (from any source), including but not limited to spoilers, screenshots, and videos.

I absolutely agree that people who agree to and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement should abide by that agreement and it is reasonable to hold them to that agreement. If someone who *didn't* agree to an NDA ends up talking about something, then I would think it is more appropriate to go after the person who leaked the information and not other people who are discussing something that was leaked.

Spoiler alert: I haven't (and won't) signed or agreed to any NDA.


17. Copyrights.
You may not upload or transmit copyrighted material without the express consent of the copyright holder.

Did you guys get written permission from the Pony division of Hasbro before making all of the pony references (CitW weapons, etc)? This is a serious question. I personally find those references annoying and I'd at least like to know that you got clearance from the higher ups at Hasbro. Even though they happen to own both TSR/Dungeons and Dragons and My Little Pony, that doesn't automatically mean that you get to use both intellectual properties when you have a license for one of them.



22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

Can we hope that you will enforce this for all political/religious threads? You know exactly what annual threads I'm talking about here even though I'm not going to name anyone because that's covered under its own guideline.


These are all serious questions and not an attempt at trolling and they're certainly not an attack on any person or people at Turbine or elsewhere. It saddens me that I have to actually say that "out loud" in this post, but I know that it's easy to take things personally in these kinds of discussions. I'd like to see Turbine get a reputation for even handed and fair minded moderation.

[Arianka]

Srsly. You mastered that last one....lulz!

[Stretchicus]

Read by a fansite member....
And subsequently ignored.

[Missing_Minds]

Now that just ain't fair . . .

"Where in the nine hells did you ever get the idea that I would fight fair" Drizzt Do'Urden, Sojourn.

[Vellrad]

"Where in the nine hells did you ever get the idea that I would fight fair" Drizzt Do'Urden, Sojourn.

Quoting drizzt should be infraction worth 15 points (at least).

[Memnir]

http://i.imgur.com/PdFr9gs.gif

[Scraap]

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

/not signed. (Might as well get it out of the system before that one kicks in.)

[Oxarhamar]

3. Grammar Police.
Any post or comment made with the intention of embarrassing another player based on spelling, typos, or grammatical errors is not permitted. Not everyone speaks the same language. Keep in mind that the person you are addressing may not be a native speaker.

Let the bans abound

[Missing_Minds]

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.


Does Turbine think they are stronger than Facebook? Because that is what /signed behavior is from. "Liking" something.

And as such, does Turbine intend to remove their self from Facebook as that, per community guidelines, it would now earn infractions for "liking" something posted on Facebook should Facebook account ever become associated to a Turbine account.

[Grosbeak07]

Does Turbine think they are stronger than Facebook? Because that is what /signed behavior is from. "Liking" something.

And as such, does Turbine intend to remove their self from Facebook as that, per community guidelines, it would now earn infractions for "liking" something posted on Facebook should Facebook account ever become associated to a Turbine account.

/signed

[knightgf]

Have you carefully considered the dangers and various other factors of implementing something such as "We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines."? I feel that this is just a wide open door to abuse of some sort by the forum moderators. I do realize that most, if not all forum moderators probably won't abuse this rule because they tend to be good aligned, but I feel that even without the abuse, this rule will do nothing but add unneeded work on behalf of the moderators, whether it is for a good cause or a tool of evil.

[Shmuel]

Cordovan,

Thank you so much for this post. I have actually been meaning to post something asking about this for awhile.

Let me be specific. It is definitely time to revise the Community Guidelines. Much more than that, it is long past time to revise the EULA and TOS.

DDO is a community game, which we all have a stake in and we all have some responsibility for. You guys at Turbine program and develop it, we play it and pay for your salaries, and WB corporation mooches off of all of us and try to force you to do things you may or may not agree with.

THE EULA, TOS, and community guidelines are far too restrictive, limit free speech and the free exchange of ideas, and in general are bad for the game and bad for all of us. We pay for this game. Without us there is no DDO. We OWN it as much as anyone else does.

Let’s have a real discussion about this. Here are my thoughts about your suggestions and a few of my own. Hopefully other members of the community will chime in and share their thoughts, whether they agree with either, both, or neither of us.

Your post is long, so let me only touch on the areas where I disagree with you. This will make my post seem overly critical if you do not consider that things I ignored I essentially agree with you about.




One relatively minor change (but something people who have run into this will appreciate) is that when you receive an infraction or warning under the revised rules, we will more clearly explain what the violation is, and there should no longer be instances where text is cut off.

That’s a good start.



We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines.

Here is your first mistake and the basic problem that I see. It is OUR game and you saying it is yours is wrong. If we leave, you start looking for new jobs. You need to be following the rules as much as the rest of us.


Because every situation is different, all enforcement and application of the community guidelines are at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team. These rules are subject to change without notice; please review them regularly.



This goes exactly the opposite direction from improving clarity and is contrary to what I have said above. Have a standard and stick to it. Otherwise have no rules at all.



2. Harassing, Insulting and Abusive posts.
We do not tolerate any comments that are abusive or insulting, involve name calling, or attempt to disparage, harass, defraud, threaten or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players, guilds, Fansites, groups, the developers, community team, Turbine/WB employees, or other companies. Doing so is considered a serious offense and will not be tolerated.
This could be interpreted as a “do not criticize us” clause. Yes, being mean is bad. But if we need something like this lets alsospecify that serious disagreement with what someone ele posted or did could be legitimate, and f the point of someones post about, for example, a particular developers poor decisions designing loot, it ought to be perfectly reasonable to name them and say what people think. Sometimes, “that’s a stupid idea” is a serious comment. If we can’t critique the stupid, the idiotic, the callous, the ignorant, what’s the point of discussing anything at all?


4. Calling out other players.
Calling out other players for their actions in game, or attempting to shame them for actions you deem unacceptable, will not be tolerated. If you feel someone has acted in a way that is inappropriate or violates our terms of use, please use the ‘report this post’ option or contact a GM in game to report in-game behaviors.

OUR community needs to set its own standards of behavior. If people are doing something wrong, or rude, it is an important function of community discussion to discuss them. If I know some guy is a criminal and I were prohibited form telling anyone other than the police about it, the criminal would get away with a lot more crime, because the police can’t always babysit every individual. If someone is doing wrong in game, these forums ought to be the FIRST PLACE people look to be warned about dangerous or untrustworthy people. That is not trolling. That’s neighborhood watch.


5. Profanity.
The use of profanity is not permitted on our forums. The forums will filter out specific words, but you are responsible for all words you use whether they are filtered or not. Please do not attempt to circumvent this filter with creative spellings, use of special characters or other means.

I can see why we may want this, as a community, but I personally don’t. I left this silliness behind in elementary school where it belongs. This is the internet. I am one click away from seeing a horse …… ...... ……. with a …… ……






9. “Self Defense” posts.
Please do not respond to attempts to provoke, troll or bait you. Posts you feel violate the community guidelines should be reported using the ‘Report this post’ button. Responding in kind usually results in both parties having actions taken against their accounts.

Again, we don’t need the police to protect us. Many of us (well, maybe not me) are fairly well spoken and able to speak up for themselves quite well. If the mods haven’t yet deleted a thread that is insulting me, I sure better be able to post my response there. Sorry, “I’m telling the teacher” was lame in elementary school, where I have already mentioned I have no desire to be.


“Bumping” and “Necro posting” are considered forms of spamming and are not permitted.
Nah, they are just funny. Selling stuff, yeah, that’s a problem. This stuff is not a problem.





13. Discussion of Disciplinary or Moderations Actions.
We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

THIS IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH ALL OF THIS. Forget about not discussing bans or discipline. On the contrary, we ought to have an entire section of the forum devoted entirely to that, like we have for races or servers.

AGAIN, you are NOTHING without your paying customers and players. You are based in the United States, where freedom of speech and due process are supposed to be among the most important pillars of society.

If someone feels like a ban or disciplinary action is unwarranted or unfair these forums are exactly where they should be discussed. Quite frankly, if you feel that what you do in this regard is fair and objective, then you should have no problem having this discussed.

In my opinion, the only decision makers and disciplinarians who will not allow their decisions or judgments to be debated in the open are the ones who know they are not being fair, not being even handed, not being objective. I hope you are not that , and so there is no need for this ban on discussion of bans. Keeping it only causes people to suspect (even if you ay not allow them to say so) that you have any moral authority to be moderating these forums in the first place. In that case I would wonder if a player-moderated forum was more appropriate and you would post there at our discretion.


15. Non-Disclosure Agreements.
You may not post, repost, or link to any information covered under a Non-disclosure agreement (from any source), including but not limited to spoilers, screenshots, and videos.

We need transparency. You should not have these at all in the first place. You are not designing secret weapons for the CIA here. This is a game. While you are at it, even if not everyone can post, everyone ought to be able to read the player council section of the forums starting on day one.


16. TOS, COC, EULA.
Users must not violate, or promote the violation of, Turbine’s terms of service, codes of conduct or end user license agreements. This includes, but is not limited to, the posting of materials or comments that call out possible exploits or encourage others to participate in exploiting game miscues and errors.

As I said, it’s time to revise the EULA and TOS as well, to better reflect the equal partnership between you and your players.



23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

I don’t tell you how to interact with your friends and I’m pretty offended you would judge how we choose to do so. This just reeks of a desire to eliminate threads that might put this game in a negative light, which are better avoided by making the game good then by squelching dissent.




[U][B]Understanding Warnings, Infractions, and Bans.

Any objective and consistent system could work for this, but there should be no such thing as a permanent ban.



Let me finish by saying this:
I did not write this just to blow off steam or to offer an opinion that can be discarded or accepted at your sole discretion. It is advice because I like these forums, just like sometimes I offer critical advice because I like this game. The rules do need to change- so that they are less stacked against the players and so that people can express themselves freely and without fear of retribution.

I am pretty sure I am not the only one here who only follows rules I can understand a legitimate need for.

There are also alternatives, in terms of other games and other other things that are available (notice how now I am can’t mention a specific thing- that is unreasonable). If you want to keep this forum healthy and the primary place to discuss DDO, you ought to be looking at these revisions a LOT more seriously.

[Havok.cry]

10. Spam.
Advertisements for any good, service, or site that are not directly related to Dungeons & Dragons Online™ is not permitted and will be removed.



I have a problem with this. When I read this I take it to mean that nothing outside of DDO may be discussed, at all. Am I interpreting this right? If so, that is insane. Here is why:
Tech Support from fellow players on software issues not directly associated with DDO: not permitted
Talking about snacks, if any specific brand is mentioned: not permitted
Talking about Turbine's other games: not permitted
(This one is especially significant as it would disallow quoting from LotRO forums when there is an issue at headquarters and turbine only posts there with news)
In fact this could disallow (as they are not directly related to DDO):
-Discussing paper and pencil dungeons and dragons
-Discussing Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro
-Discussing Warner Brothers

Maybe I am reading this wrong though. If I am please state so clearly.

[Ebondevil]

LOOOONG Wall of Text

Sorry, I hate editing peoples quotes but there was so much of it :(


The thing is most of these rules aren't here to specifically punish the community, police the community or control what the community can write, etc, but to prevent outside influences coming along to scrawl all over the walls so to speak.

A clear set of rules helps to maintain a clean an healthy forum, the rules against profanity Self defence posts, Harassment ect, are there to stop the forums being utterly derailed into hate threads, prevention of self defence isn't really Turbine saying you are incapable of defending yourself, more an attempt to prevent further spam, trolling and baiting from derailing threads. It takes 2 to tango as they say, and reporting it saves the mods having to clean up huge threads which can quickly become a heated and messy argument.

It's very easy for someone to create a free account and start posting, without the rules in place there's a good chance every thread would end up derailed and spammed with profanity and hate, this is the internet after all, if you don't believe me, go look at some forums which don't have those rules.


Non Disclosure Agreements are pretty standard stuff in the games industry, especially for stuff that's in very early development, as it prevents people getting the wrong impression or false expectations while the developers hash out ideas, not to mention the business aspects of it.


Regarding the lack of a forum to discuss moderation, that itself has some benefits, I know some Other Forums have sections just for that and they work, other forums don't. In general I believe you can normally appeal any infractions and the like by contacting the moderators. And as such there's no real advantage to have a forum for it except for finger pointing and helping to promote instances of breaking the rules in other aspects. The moderators are employees and generally have the final say, they are not meant to cave to community pressure and thus there's no benefit to such forums.

You also seem to be under the mistaken belief that you have some rights to the game, you pretty much don't have any, you may rent aspects of the game, and have invested money into it, but you don't own anything, and Turbine can pretty much take your account(s) away whenever they want, that's never likely to change.


Signed: Someone who has moderated some seriously filthy and disgusting stuff on other forums! *wanders off to get out the brain bleach again*

[HungarianRhapsody]

You also seem to be under the mistaken belief that you have some rights to the game, you pretty much don't have any, you may rent aspects of the game, and have invested money into it, but you don't own anything, and Turbine can pretty much take your account(s) away whenever they want, that's never likely to change.

This is 100% accurate and 100% irrelevant.

If Turbine wants to make money and if the people who work at Turbine want to keep their jobs, then they need to make us want to be here, buying and using their products. Turbine can do what they want, but if what they want is to make money, then they'd be well served by taking some of the advice in this thread - even if some of that advice is offered in a snarky manner.

[toaftoaf]

but keep on telling us when you release the wrong code. and yes if you guys do that get ready for some hurt feelings, BUT telling us is the right thing to do

[SilkofDrasnia]

I hope you will make the new Players Council read and understand these guidelines, in particular #2, 5 and 8. It would do well for them to give the example!

[Calinthus]

First of all, the forums are supposed to be a place for player to express their views (albeit with decorum). To stop that is to stop a community from growing.
Second, I have loved playing DDO, it HAD a rich culture, and a lot of fun.
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ........
That being said, I have grown tired of the elitists, the saboteurs, the greed that have infested our game.
When I started playing, there were folk that were rude, and still are. Fine.
But, there were more folk that would help others, they have either gone or conformed to those others. And I have tried to carry the good part on. To no avail.
I may play again, I may not (most likely not).
To close up views like this is to hamstring your own business. How else will folk learn?
So, I say 'Be kind, be good, be generous.'
To do otherwise is to destroy what was enjoyable.

Signed Calinthus Ravenwing.
Be good to each other.

[Pala-forged]

One relatively minor change (but something people who have run into this will appreciate) is that when you receive an infraction or warning under the revised rules, we will more clearly explain what the violation is, and there should no longer be instances where text is cut off.


While I never cared about the rules, and won't care about them now, I'm glad you followed through with that.
It also proves I have mystical powers, having made Cordovan respond to my wishes.
This i

[Calinthus]

Gotta ask. Why is DDO deeming that a good-bye on the forums is a reason for punishment? Most players use one server, but, if we feel that we need to leave, we should be able to say 'Good-bye' to the entire DDO community. After all, we ARE a community. Or have we as players been reduced to puppets?

[SirShen]

Does Turbine think they are stronger than Facebook? Because that is what /signed behavior is from. "Liking" something.

And as such, does Turbine intend to remove their self from Facebook as that, per community guidelines, it would now earn infractions for "liking" something posted on Facebook should Facebook account ever become associated to a Turbine account.

/Liked.

[Fedora1]

1. One person, One Account.

After breaking access to the forums with my original account "Fedora" when Turbine migrated to this horrible new forum (I am still typing this as black on gray in IE because we cannot use Firefox at work, and I still need to right click and "open in new tab" to use the edit function) thus forcing me to create a second game account (ftp) in order to create a new Forum account "Fedora1", I will be granted a pardon on this rule?

I know there are many others in the same boat.

[Stretchicus]

There's no actual way of seeing how many expired infraction points you have, correct?
Can we get a little more transparency on this?

Also I'm unsure about the 2010 date mentioned here...

* Automatic bans based on the number of infractions take all infractions into account, regardless of their Active or Expired status. If an account was above the limit when this change was implemented (August 2010) it will be banned if any further infractions are issued against it.

[Cyndder]

1. One person, One Account.
You are permitted one Community account for posting on the Community Sites. Players who are found posting from more than one account will be asked to choose an account for use while posting, and posting privileges will be removed from all other accounts. Additional or secondary accounts created or used for the purpose of trolling, circumventing a ban, or otherwise violating these Community Guidelines may result in the permanent ban of any and all associated Community and Game accounts, at the Turbine Community Team's discretion.

>>IF you are doing this by IP address then home networks with husband/wives or parent/child having separate accounts will only show you the modem IP address--when in fact they are different people...how are you going to determine this?

6. Derailing/disruption of official discussion threads.
Official threads are created by the Community, Development, and other teams to gather feedback and create a focused discussion around a given topic. Attempting to derail these threads by posting unrelated comments or bringing other issues into the discussion is not permitted.

>> This COULD be a slippery-slope in some instances. IF you are asking for feedback and someone point out that you could in fact fix it a similar manner that xxx was fixed and this leads to a tangent on xxx and why this should or should not be the fix or why xxx is 'nerfed' or broken'...this should not be penalized.

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn't really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

>> Again another slippery slope--While signed and unsigned are not 'actionable' the original post that they are referring to should be actionable. Then the question becomes is it in the right section; if the post is listed on Orion but really concerns every server should it not be in general? Or are you planning on having a separate forum section added just for suggestions? As to polls, this is something the Dev team has completely missed out on. Things like which race, class or feat would the community like to see added next polls would have been a big opportunity to keep the community members involved.

17. Copyrights.
You may not upload or transmit copyrighted material without the express consent of the copyright holder.

>>I realize this is a CYA legalize clause that can really only be enforced if the copyright holder complains...this removes your liability.

18. Illegal activity.
You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws, or regulations.

>>I realize this is a CYA legalize clause that can really only be enforced if the copyright holder complains...this removes your liability. I seriously doubt there are any plans to list all the 'laws' for every nation; as some nations laws have more freedom to communicate openly than others. The other nations laws could also be in direct conflict with US laws.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

>> Is this even needed? The first line is complete garbage as it has nothing to do with posting--it has to do with forming groups that promotes intolerance. An argument can be made that any person with a strong religious background cannot post on the forums as they are members of a group who may not support a given lifestyle. Currently I know of several guilds that formed around the country they are from, the races in games they are allowed to have in the guild, those with 'family kid friendly' values, or who are members of the same local church or city. My guild has members from Australia, Brazil, and the US currently. When I see intolerance because a member does not recognize that English is a second language to some members I address it immediately. If they continue to have issues on this or hateful speech they are asked to leave the guild or removed if they refuse to go. With an international clientele of users what is deemed 'hate' by one person is grouping with people with like values to another. This is complete overlap with number 21 once you remove the 'groups' from the equation and last I looked within the forum community we don't have the option to form groups...only in game do we have the option to form guilds. I understand what the intent of this line is; and I agree Hating is bad; but from a forum perspective this rule should be combined with 21 by taking the last two sentences and appending it the end of rule 21.

21. Inappropriate content.
You may not use, distribute, or spotlight, or post links to sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially, nationally, ethnically offensive content or language, or other content deemed inappropriate at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

>> This could also be merged in with rule 21.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

>>Again a slippery slope--as mentioned by others some people play on multiple servers--what about a grieving spouse/parent who posts a message of goodbye because the player in question has died...are we going to add to their grief because it is against this policy? What about a player who becomes disable to the point that they cannot play anymore (mentally and/or physically)? I would hope that compassion would win out.

[xXbikergirlXx]

While I agree a certain amount of control over what is posted is absolutely necessary.....

There is an old saying that immediately sprung to mind and as some one who had it drummed into them over many years of working in jobs where dealing with the general public was the 'job', I have to wonder whether it should still have serious consideration......

'The customer is always right' :)

[jalont]

While I agree a certain amount of control over what is posted is absolutely necessary.....

There is an old saying that immediately sprung to mind and as some one who had it drummed into them over many years of working in jobs where dealing with the general public was the 'job', I have to wonder whether it should still have serious consideration......

'The customer is always right' :)

This world would be a lot better place if the customer realized they are almost never right.

[Drwaz99]

Question on appeals: When you make an appeal for either an infraction or a ban, does the appeal go to a person different than the person who issued them?

There's a reason when you appeal things in real life they are escalated to a higher body or a lateral individual not involved with the original action. To avoid bias (obviously if the same person received the appeal, it's not likely for them to reverse their own decision, even if the original premise of theirs is flawed.) If not, is there any real reason to even attempt to appeal? The process would seem highly unfair.

[SilkofDrasnia]

There's no actual way of seeing how many expired infraction points you have, correct?
Can we get a little more transparency on this?

Also I'm unsure about the 2010 date mentioned here...

Aye let us see how many infractions total we have including a break down of expired and active infractions.

[apep1412]

Or are you planning on having a separate forum section added just for suggestions?

Suggestions & Ideas (https://www.ddo.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/75-Suggestions-amp-Ideas)

[BurnerD]

on the + side if these rules are consistently enforced you should only have a few dozen posts a day to moderate.....

[geoffhanna]

Personally, I like non-vindictive good-bye posts. Ones that are hateful are already restricted by other rules; you do not need a farewell post ban to deal with the hateful ones.

A thoughtful goodbye hurts no one. They ought to be acceptable.

[Havok.cry]

'The customer is always right' :)This statement is wrong. If the customer was always right, I would get paid to shop at any store I went to, rather than pay for stuff.

[Drwaz99]

Personally, I like non-vindictive good-bye posts. Ones that are hateful are already restricted by other rules; you do not need a farewell post ban to deal with the hateful ones.

A thoughtful goodbye hurts no one. They ought to be acceptable.

I do too. I think this is more to stem the responses to the goodbye posts (even the most positive ones). Almost immediately after a person says goodbye, people start trolling.

[Missing_Minds]

Personally, I like non-vindictive good-bye posts. Ones that are hateful are already restricted by other rules; you do not need a farewell post ban to deal with the hateful ones.

A thoughtful goodbye hurts no one. They ought to be acceptable.

I imagine that as much as they want to foster "community" they want to nix any possible flames and dissension before it happens. This gives them clearance to do what they want. It is the same as us telling a government they can't do something, to which the government turns around and makes a new law to say "yes we can."

However, this is one of the few cases where I'm certain they realize it is pointless.

I expect they will continue to do as they have. Lock a thread and forget about passing out infractions to someone who is no longer there.


Look at it this way. On these private gaming forums, they know full well, that some percentage of people are going to be rules lawyers. (face it, it comes with the game.) So to handle and in essence empower these types of personalities, they have created an abundance of rules. When in reality, these.. what? 20 rules? (Hush Steve Martain) can be limited down... 4?

1. Follow the ToS, copyright laws, EULA, etc.
2. Be respectful on the forums and watch the profanity usage. If someone "attacks" you. Report it and ignore the person. It is our job to deal with such, not yours.
3. Do not pad your post count. /like, /signed, /hatethisstupididea, etc. counts as such. Be more verbose about about why if you are inclined to want to treat the forums like Facebook..
4. Advertisements about other businesses and vestments are not allowed. There must be a direct link to DDO, LOTRO, AC, or Turbine Inc. for it to be permissible. Some cases, such as charities, may be given permission but only on a case by case bases.
5. The spirit of the rules are what shall be followed, not the written letter as these are a privately held forum. Our say is final. Any perceived abuse of these forums shall be delt with accordingly.

Ok, so five. *shrugs*

[Cordovan]

Please note that this thread is not an invitation to debate whether you feel moderators do their work well. Stick to the topics of the rules clarifications and revisions.

I see a lot of questions in this thread that can be answered with: Common sense also applies.


very strongly disagree with this one.

I feel like if someone wants to say goodbye to their server, as they have run with them for years, and they find it easier to make a post on the forum rather than sending many people individual tells, why not?

The issue is not someone legitimately saying goodbye to friends. Rather, it's people who use alleged "goodbye" threads to violate the rules, cause drama, and troll others. We have never permitted people to say goodbye on the forums. This is not a change, nor anything new.


Does Turbine think they are stronger than Facebook? Because that is what /signed behavior is from. "Liking" something.

And as such, does Turbine intend to remove their self from Facebook as that, per community guidelines, it would now earn infractions for "liking" something posted on Facebook should Facebook account ever become associated to a Turbine account.

No. Common sense also applies.


Have you carefully considered the dangers and various other factors of implementing something such as "We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines."? I feel that this is just a wide open door to abuse of some sort by the forum moderators. I do realize that most, if not all forum moderators probably won't abuse this rule because they tend to be good aligned, but I feel that even without the abuse, this rule will do nothing but add unneeded work on behalf of the moderators, whether it is for a good cause or a tool of evil.

This too is nothing new. From the current Guidelines: "Because every situation is different, all moderation of the Community Sites is at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team. These rules are subject to change without notice; please review them regularly." It basically aims to tell you that attempting to rules-lawyer your way out of an infraction is probably not going to work.


I have a problem with this. When I read this I take it to mean that nothing outside of DDO may be discussed, at all. Am I interpreting this right? If so, that is insane. Here is why:
Tech Support from fellow players on software issues not directly associated with DDO: not permitted
Talking about snacks, if any specific brand is mentioned: not permitted
Talking about Turbine's other games: not permitted
(This one is especially significant as it would disallow quoting from LotRO forums when there is an issue at headquarters and turbine only posts there with news)
In fact this could disallow (as they are not directly related to DDO):
-Discussing paper and pencil dungeons and dragons
-Discussing Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro
-Discussing Warner Brothers

Maybe I am reading this wrong though. If I am please state so clearly.

Again, Spam falls under common sense, too. Making a post in Off-Topic asking people to talk about their favorite candy bar is fine. Creating 100 threads linking to a place to earn free candy and spamming the forums with it is not okay.


After breaking access to the forums with my original account "Fedora" when Turbine migrated to this horrible new forum (I am still typing this as black on gray in IE because we cannot use Firefox at work, and I still need to right click and "open in new tab" to use the edit function) thus forcing me to create a second game account (ftp) in order to create a new Forum account "Fedora1", I will be granted a pardon on this rule?

I know there are many others in the same boat.

The main thing to know about the One Person, One Account rule is that the issue isn't the having of a second account (after all, many of us have a spare free account, some dualbox, etc.) The issue is using that second account for trolling or other violating behavior.


There's no actual way of seeing how many expired infraction points you have, correct?
Can we get a little more transparency on this?

Also I'm unsure about the 2010 date mentioned here...

I don't think the tech is there to allow this, but I will look into it. I think you are correct on the 2010 date; I think it was earlier for DDO.


Personally, I like non-vindictive good-bye posts. Ones that are hateful are already restricted by other rules; you do not need a farewell post ban to deal with the hateful ones.

A thoughtful goodbye hurts no one. They ought to be acceptable.

We have never allowed these posts for numerous reasons. I agree that a thoughtful goodbye is probably fine, but historically, time and again, it has been proven to us that we can't allow these posts, because a thoughtful goodbye often becomes a thread to bash Turbine or players, debate who's better than who, cry "doom!" over some change or another, etc. While I appreciate the sentiment of allowing a thoughtful goodbye, we also have to base the rules on actual behavior, and that behavior tells us to not permit goodbye posts.

[Cordovan]

I imagine that as much as they want to foster "community" they want to nix any possible flames and dissension before it happens. This gives them clearance to do what they want. It is the same as us telling a government they can't do something, to which the government turns around and makes a new law to say "yes we can."

However, this is one of the few cases where I'm certain they realize it is pointless.

I expect they will continue to do as they have. Lock a thread and forget about passing out infractions to someone who is no longer there.


Look at it this way. On these private gaming forums, they know full well, that some percentage of people are going to be rules lawyers. (face it, it comes with the game.) So to handle and in essence empower these types of personalities, they have created an abundance of rules. When in reality, these.. what? 20 rules? (Hush Steve Martain) can be limited down... 4?

1. Follow the ToS, copyright laws, EULA, etc.
2. Be respectful on the forums and watch the profanity usage. If someone "attacks" you. Report it and ignore the person. It is our job to deal with such, not yours.
3. Do not pad your post count. /like, /signed, /hatethisstupididea, etc. counts as such. Be more verbose about about why if you are inclined to want to treat the forums like Facebook..
4. Advertisements about other businesses and vestments are not allowed. There must be a direct link to DDO, LOTRO, AC, or Turbine Inc. for it to be permissible. Some cases, such as charities, may be given permission but only on a case by case bases.
5. The spirit of the rules are what shall be followed, not the written letter as these are a privately held forum. Our say is final. Any perceived abuse of these forums shall be delt with accordingly.

Ok, so five. *shrugs*

Frankly, almost all of these rules could be narrowed down to one rule: Wheaton's Law. Since it includes profanity, I'll leave it to you to Google it.

[Teh_Troll]

Frankly, almost all of these rules could be narrowed down to one rule: Wheaton's Law. Since it includes profanity, I'll leave it to you to Google it.

So don't insult people or be a jerk and we're fine?

As we still allowed to be racist towards halflings?

[Mahalko128]

I think you could chalk most of the posts after Cordovan's initial as, "Rules?! Nooooo!"

[Fedora1]

The main thing to know about the One Person, One Account rule is that the issue isn't the having of a second account (after all, many of us have a spare free account, some dualbox, etc.) The issue is using that second account for trolling or other violating behavior.

Okay thanks for the clarification.

[alancarp]

Community Guidelines
11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

It doesn't?? Seriously? Isn't that a MUCH more succinct way of saying "I agree with everything you said"? The 'actionable feedback' is the original statement being quoted and /signed by subsequent posters. The 'well-considered suggestion' you seek is most likely post #1 of the thread. I would certainly think it would be a lot easier for y'all to see a topic, count the up or down 'votes' and then decide if a popular topic has actual merit for inclusion in the game.

In terms of a topic turning into something unpleasant, well, heck: isn't the point of the forums to express ideas, suggestions, and opinions... include opposing views? Respectfully, of course (that's the evident point of THIS topic thread), but the unpleasantness aspect is the responsibility of the posters. /signed and /unsigned designations actually would serve to keep the civility.

[stubby68]

Your house; your rules. I can live with that.

I think that all Turbine is asking of us is to act maturely, honorably, and to use common sense.

Everything after that is to give us a common list of expectations on how we should govern ourselves publicly.

We have all clicked on that little "I agree" box when we started playing.

[jalont]

It doesn't?? Seriously? Isn't that a MUCH more succinct way of saying "I agree with everything you said"? The 'actionable feedback' is the original statement being quoted and /signed by subsequent posters. The 'well-considered' suggestion you seek is most likely post #1 of the thread. I would certainly think it would be a lot easier for y'all to see a topic, count the up or down 'votes' and then decide if a popular topic has actually merit for inclusion in the game.

In terms of a topic turning into something unpleasant, well, heck: isn't the point of the forums to express ideas, suggestions, and opinions... include opposing views? Respectfully, of course (that's the evident point of THIS topic thread), but the unpleasantness aspect is the responsibility of the posters. /signed and /unsigned designations actually would serve to keep the civility.

The topic or suggestion can be seen in the first post. Turbine can then decide if it is a good game design idea. 100 people then putting signed or unsigned doesn't change if the idea makes sense gamewise.

[Grosbeak07]

I think you could chalk most of the posts after Cordovan's initial as, "Rules?! Nooooo!"

If they were all enforced evenly, I think people would have a lot less issue. But Turbine has a track record of hitting those who don't agree with them harder than those who do (like not at all).

But as another poster put it above, "Their house, their rules."

[jalont]

If they were all enforced evenly, I think people would have a lot less issue. But Turbine has a track record of hitting those who don't agree with them harder than those who do (like not at all).

It's funny that you have this opinion. I'm of the opinion that the devs here don't police at all unless it's very blatant like a rude tirade full of name calling.

[enochiancub]

Well if nothing else I'm all for the idea of you guys improving moderation. It's been sorely lacking to be sure.

[alancarp]

The topic or suggestion can be seen in the first post. Turbine can then decide if it is a good game design idea. 100 people then putting signed or unsigned doesn't change if the idea makes sense gamewise.

In assigning priority of changes and updates, it's a darn good idea to see how many people are on board with an idea. Even if something makes sense gamewise, it won't be implemented quickly if the players don't agree that they would approve and make use of the idea. Polls are useful... heck, that's effectively one purpose of the Player's Council - to bounce ideas around and see who likes them.

Furthermore, the policy statement actually wants those opinions and ideas conveyed... just not in this nice, compact, convenient succinct /signed/unsigned format. But sometimes... not often enough (blush)... I don't have anything more to say.

[Cordovan]

The topic or suggestion can be seen in the first post. Turbine can then decide if it is a good game design idea. 100 people then putting signed or unsigned doesn't change if the idea makes sense gamewise.


It doesn't?? Seriously? Isn't that a MUCH more succinct way of saying "I agree with everything you said"? The 'actionable feedback' is the original statement being quoted and /signed by subsequent posters. The 'well-considered suggestion' you seek is most likely post #1 of the thread. I would certainly think it would be a lot easier for y'all to see a topic, count the up or down 'votes' and then decide if a popular topic has actual merit for inclusion in the game.

In terms of a topic turning into something unpleasant, well, heck: isn't the point of the forums to express ideas, suggestions, and opinions... include opposing views? Respectfully, of course (that's the evident point of THIS topic thread), but the unpleasantness aspect is the responsibility of the posters. /signed and /unsigned designations actually would serve to keep the civility.

For feedback, even if the OP has a well-considered suggestion, it is valuable for the team to hear other voices and opinions on the subject, or at the very least others re-iterating why such a change or idea is important to them. Simple /signed threads just don't offer much of value when it comes to feedback. That said, I'll be honest, we have very rarely had to engage in moderator activity over this rule, and I'd expect that to continue.

[rest]

There's no actual way of seeing how many expired infraction points you have, correct?
Can we get a little more transparency on this?

Access your profile by clicking your name where it says "Welcome, Stretchicus" in the upper right corner of the forums. On that page, there are 4 tabs at the top labeled "My Activity", "About Me", "Friends", and "Infractions". Click the "Infractions" tab and it will bring up all the infractions and warning you have received over the course of your entire DDO Forum career. This is helpful for people who have more than 5 warnings/infractions.

[jalont]

Access your profile by clicking your name where it says "Welcome, Stretchicus" in the upper right corner of the forums. On that page, there are 4 tabs at the top labeled "My Activity", "About Me", "Friends", and "Infractions". Click the "Infractions" tab and it will bring up all the infractions and warning you have received over the course of your entire DDO Forum career. This is helpful for people who have more than 5 warnings/infractions.

I don't have one of these infractions tab. Perhaps it spawns when you receive an infraction?

[rest]

I don't have one of these infractions tab. Perhaps it spawns when you receive an infraction?

That is likely correct. I don't personally know the answer to that question.

This is what my profile looks like, and it is probably what people who have received a warning/infraction will see on their profile.
http://i.imgur.com/wIvRAIY.jpg

[Missing_Minds]

No. Common sense also applies.
Look at texting and language. As things happen, things change. The culture of our parents is not the culture we have. Therefore "common sense" also changes.

Given there is a Facebook culture, it is common sense to /like something.

"Common sense" is common only to ones culture. So as the saying goes, "common sense isn't."


Frankly, almost all of these rules could be narrowed down to one rule: Wheaton's Law. Since it includes profanity, I'll leave it to you to Google it.
I prefer KISS, it gets you in less trouble while still protecting yourself.

[jalont]

Look at texting and language. As things happen, things change. The culture of our parents is not the culture we have. Therefore "common sense" also changes.

Given there is a Facebook culture, it is common sense to /like something.

"Common sense" is common only to ones culture. So as the saying goes, "common sense isn't."


I prefer KISS, it gets you in less trouble while still protecting yourself.

These Guidelines are incredibly simple. And it's incredibly simple to follow them. People are just complaining because they don't want to follow them.

[Missing_Minds]

These Guidelines are incredibly simple. And it's incredibly simple to follow them. People are just complaining because they don't want to follow them.

"First they came..." And in the history of DDO/LOTRO forums, we are now pretty much on the third line.

[Havok.cry]

@Cordovan Thanks for clarifying things for us. The time you spent doing this is appreciated.

[Seikojin]

For the bulk of the thread, and the changes, the inline bolded is purely relevant.


Soon we will be revising our DDO Community Guidelines to largely match a recent update to the Community Guidelines implemented by our friends at Lord of the Rings Online. As some folks may know, both games have shared our Community Guidelines for years, and we plan to bring this update to DDO within the next week or so.

In general, you will find that the rules have not changed. In a few cases we have added specificity to the Community Guidelines to clarify what kinds of violations can lead to which kind of infraction. We found over on LOTRO that players largely preferred these new guidelines due to their increased clarity and readability, but please give us your feedback as well.

One relatively minor change (but something people who have run into this will appreciate) is that when you receive an infraction or warning under the revised rules, we will more clearly explain what the violation is, and there should no longer be instances where text is cut off.

Without further ado, here is the text:

...snip....

[Cyr]

For feedback, even if the OP has a well-considered suggestion, it is valuable for the team to hear other voices and opinions on the subject, or at the very least others re-iterating why such a change or idea is important to them. Simple /signed threads just don't offer much of value when it comes to feedback. That said, I'll be honest, we have very rarely had to engage in moderator activity over this rule, and I'd expect that to continue.

Numerical feedback offered from polls is incredibly valuable. It is the quickest and easiest way to learn how the community feels about a specific question. Not having these tools has been harmful to DDO's long term success because simple questions like "Do you think this change to item X is a good idea?" would result in a clear picture of if something was going to be a public relations disaster for Turbine or a public relations boon. Ignoring /signed and /not signed posts (poor mans way of doing a poll) just gives you a poor sampling of the player base with very vocal members voices counting for more. Having those players brainstorming solutions and new ideas is awesome, having them count as thousands of players is not.

[sephiroth1084]

I'm kind of boggled by the point about not being able to post to the forums if you are inactive in DDO-proper. There are plenty of players who continue to post useful insights and information to the forums even when taking a hiatus from the game. It also serves as a way for players who have been away for a while to gauge whether or not they want to return, but I know that Turbine/WB doesn't care about that sort of retention at all.

If I want to take a break from DDO for several months, because I'm unhappy or bored with the way certain facets of the game have developed, why should I be barred from providing feedback on things in development that would draw me back to the game, as happened with the Enhancement Pass?

[Postumus]

Numerical feedback offered from polls is incredibly valuable. It is the quickest and easiest way to learn how the community feels about a specific question. Not having these tools has been harmful to DDO's long term success because simple questions like "Do you think this change to item X is a good idea?" would result in a clear picture of if something was going to be a public relations disaster for Turbine or a public relations boon. Ignoring /signed and /not signed posts (poor mans way of doing a poll) just gives you a poor sampling of the player base with very vocal members voices counting for more. Having those players brainstorming solutions and new ideas is awesome, having them count as thousands of players is not.


I agree with you Cyr. Apparently Turbine does not, and that also explains a few things.

[Dawnsfire]

Frankly, almost all of these rules could be narrowed down to one rule: Wheaton's Law. Since it includes profanity, I'll leave it to you to Google it.

Wow. If Wesley Crusher can have his own law they will obviously give them to anyone ;)

[jalont]

Numerical feedback offered from polls is incredibly valuable. It is the quickest and easiest way to learn how the community feels about a specific question. Not having these tools has been harmful to DDO's long term success because simple questions like "Do you think this change to item X is a good idea?" would result in a clear picture of if something was going to be a public relations disaster for Turbine or a public relations boon. Ignoring /signed and /not signed posts (poor mans way of doing a poll) just gives you a poor sampling of the player base with very vocal members voices counting for more. Having those players brainstorming solutions and new ideas is awesome, having them count as thousands of players is not.

Perhaps I should have been more blunt. Having a poll of what people like and don't like means nothing because frankly the forumites are BAD at designing a game. What they think they want will usually lead to a horribly designed game. It is up to the design team to make these decisions, and they know how to design this game a million times better than forumites. For instance, you make a claim about the long term success of DDO, yet the game remains one of the longest running MMOs in history. The reason for this is because it has remained profitable, likely due to a myriad of changes that would go /unsigned and that forumites don't like. You basically jumped to your own conclusions that are completely opposite to the facts, and this is why forumites shouldn't be designing this game.

[Hoglum]

TL;DR

Can we swear, call people out, make fun of developers and talk about religious politics?

[Teh_Troll]

Wow. If Wesley Crusher can have his own law they will obviously give them to anyone ;)

I'd describe 'Troll's Law" but this is a family friendly forum.

[rayworks]

Please note that this thread is not an invitation to debate whether you feel moderators do their work well.

OK, where do we debate that? Because a lot of people think they aren't.

[Cordovan]

I'm kind of boggled by the point about not being able to post to the forums if you are inactive in DDO-proper. There are plenty of players who continue to post useful insights and information to the forums even when taking a hiatus from the game. It also serves as a way for players who have been away for a while to gauge whether or not they want to return, but I know that Turbine/WB doesn't care about that sort of retention at all.

If I want to take a break from DDO for several months, because I'm unhappy or bored with the way certain facets of the game have developed, why should I be barred from providing feedback on things in development that would draw me back to the game, as happened with the Enhancement Pass?

You would not be. This rule gives us an option to deal with people who no longer play the game but continue to be on the forums in order to cause trouble and violate the community guidelines. Nine times out of ten that person would find themselves banned due to infractable behavior such as trolling or insults, but just in case, we have this rule. I would not expect to see this rule used much around here, either.

[Sillk]

You would not be. This rule gives us an option to deal with people who no longer play the game but continue to be on the forums in order to cause trouble and violate the community guidelines. Nine times out of ten that person would find themselves banned due to infractable behavior such as trolling or insults, but just in case, we have this rule. I would not expect to see this rule used much around here, either.

In a few responses from you in this thread I've read where there are rules that you may enforce. The above, and the /signed sound like they are there to occasionally be enforced.

That kind of serves to detract from the rest of the rules that are always enforced. Harassment, Profanity, etc.

Could you omit anything, and have a general "at our discretion" comment to catch the rest?

[Holy_Purple_Wolf]

In a few responses from you in this thread I've read where there are rules that you may enforce. The above, and the /signed sound like they are there to occasionally be enforced.

That kind of serves to detract from the rest of the rules that are always enforced. Harassment, Profanity, etc.

Could you omit anything, and have a general "at our discretion" comment to catch the rest?

Odd. I interpreted most of the guidelines to be aimed at catching the Rest and similar posters.

[Scraap]

Odd. I interpreted most of the guidelines to be aimed at catching the Rest and similar posters.

Obviously, but it's not nice to point it out on their PR boards. (What, does anyone really think after reading that list the moniker 'discussion' is truly accurate?)

[rest]

catch the rest?

:(

[H8Tank]

:(

Get your pitchforks! Personal attacks!

[Shmuel]

Odd. I interpreted most of the guidelines to be aimed at catching the Rest and similar posters.

Love your forum name.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

It's somewhat predictable, seeing this notice so quickly after the announcement of your new position.

What I think, after reading the whole post and observing the forums for few years now, is that you've been frustrated for some time. Now that you've been given the "new broom" you're setting the groundwork to sweep the floor.

I would like to suggest that you resist the temptation. The forums are less than optimal, and I could even sympathise. But they're Turbine's client base. A client base that is not growing.
Alienating (more) customers will not revitalise the game, but accelerate its demise.

This is by no means a threat, but please also keep in mind that just because you can silence people on these forums doesn't mean those people won't be heard elsewhere, in places where you can't moderate or monitor, and you won't have a voice.

Cleaning house, as I suspect you may want to, will just cause people to congregate elsewhere, and more people will join them, because they're a community, with or without these actual forums. It's just the nature of the internet.
The more that happens, the more Turbine will lose touch with the people it allegedly designs its product for (and after Shadowfell, I think that would be... well, not good).



I won't be surprised if you shoot the messenger, but I think it needed to be said.








23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.


I don't buy it. This may be your publicly stated reason, but my opinion is that it is disingenuous. I guess you had to put it up there in writing, but I'm disappointed.

We both know people don't publicly say "farewell" because of their personal connections. They're making a statement to Turbine, in front of us. And you're setting the groundwork to silence them; which you've been doing for some time now anyway.


As for infractions and bans for this, what kind of business slams the door behind a customer who cancels his or her subscription?
Will this keep them amenable to Turbine's other products?

I'd state my opinion of this, but I'm already expecting an infraction... or something.

[Drakos]

We have never allowed these posts for numerous reasons. I agree that a thoughtful goodbye is probably fine, but historically, time and again, it has been proven to us that we can't allow these posts, because a thoughtful goodbye often becomes a thread to bash Turbine or players, debate who's better than who, cry "doom!" over some change or another, etc. While I appreciate the sentiment of allowing a thoughtful goodbye, we also have to base the rules on actual behavior, and that behavior tells us to not permit goodbye posts.

I have to respectfully disagree here. I have been on the forums since launch and seen many threads where people said goodby that were not deleted/moderated. It usually took the form of a "goodby" post followed by "so long we'll miss you" posts and the occasional "can I have your stuff".

If you wish to moderate these types of threads I am OK with it, but to say they were "never allowed" is at best a misrepresentation. They have been allowed in the past, or at least allowed to remain, I can't say weather the OP's were given infractions for them or not since infractions are never public.

[sirgog]

Odd. I interpreted most of the guidelines to be aimed at catching the Rest and similar posters.

These forums would be a much less interesting place without Rest.

[Seikojin]

I mean really, it says in the opening post, nothing is really changing. These additions and changes just give us more insight into why something would happen and clears up some of the mystery on how these things happen. I am pretty sure bans and infractions occurred for the very things spelled out here, yet were not spelled out as they will be.

[Jeromio]

I think that some strict examples might be needed, perhaps in some kind of complement FAQ or such, e.g. for usage of "internal knowledge" things that is not allowed, e.g. the phrase "Hi, Welcome". There are things that new forum users might not be aware of, and examples clarifying the rules might help a lot.

Also, perhaps mentioning that other web sites with certain content might not be referenced in any way or even be hinted at. I suppose this is a tricky one though. I didn't see anything about this, or did I miss it?

[Singular]

It's somewhat predictable, seeing this notice so quickly after the announcement of your new position.

What I think, after reading the whole post and observing the forums for few years now, is that you've been frustrated for some time. Now that you've been given the "new broom" you're setting the groundwork to sweep the floor.

I would like to suggest that you resist the temptation. The forums are less than optimal, and I could even sympathise. But they're Turbine's client base. A client base that is not growing.
Alienating (more) customers will not revitalise the game, but accelerate its demise.

This is by no means a threat, but please also keep in mind that just because you can silence people on these forums doesn't mean those people won't be heard elsewhere, in places where you can't moderate or monitor, and you won't have a voice.

Cleaning house, as I suspect you may want to, will just cause people to congregate elsewhere, and more people will join them, because they're a community, with or without these actual forums. It's just the nature of the internet.
The more that happens, the more Turbine will lose touch with the people it allegedly designs its product for (and after Shadowfell, I think that would be... well, not good).



I won't be surprised if you shoot the messenger, but I think it needed to be said.








I don't buy it. This may be your publicly stated reason, but my opinion is that it is disingenuous. I guess you had to put it up there in writing, but I'm disappointed.

We both know people don't publicly say "farewell" because of their personal connections. They're making a statement to Turbine, in front of us. And you're setting the groundwork to silence them; which you've been doing for some time now anyway.


As for infractions and bans for this, what kind of business slams the door behind a customer who cancels his or her subscription?
Will this keep them amenable to Turbine's other products?

I'd state my opinion of this, but I'm already expecting an infraction... or something.

I could agree more with you.

How can Turbine be changing its communication to more open while becoming more draconic in its policing of the forums???

The two do not go hand in hand.

[Enepttastic]

Few bits of criticisms here after working on a wholly different way of replying to this where I broke down each rule and shared my thoughts on it. Pardon me as I channel George Carlin and suggest a clean-up to the rules while lacking the ability to add some humor onto it.

On areas that don't need changing, I'll say as much. Areas that could use minor tweaking will be have the changes added to the original text in italics. Areas that I feel need more substantial work will be explained prior to the suggestion revision.

Suggested rules revamp:

One Person, One Account: Fine as-is.
Harassing, Insulting and Abusive Behavior: Original text is fine, to start. However, there are several rules that fall under the umbrella of this rule and I do believe it would be better to have them listed as subsets instead of being scattered throughout. My suggestion change follows the original text like so:
Such behavior includes, but is not limited to:

Calling out other players
Personal information and Private conversations
Grammar PolicePosts considered abusive to the forum population will not be tolerated either, examples include but are not limited to:

Provoking, Trolling, and baiting: Self-Defense posts should be covered here as well.
Hate Speech & Groups
Profanity
Inappropriate Conduct
Impersonation
Fabircated and misleading information
Spam

Derailing/Disruption of official discussion threads: Standard text is fine.
Discussion of Disciplinary or Moderation Actions: Fine as-is.
Reposting and Quoting: More or less fine, I feel it's a coin toss to have reposting here or under the previous rule though.
NDA: Originally didn't want to keep this on the list but realized it also applies to those who didn't break an NDA but are instead (re)posting info obtained from an NDA breach.
Illegal Activity: The copyright rule, if you really feel the need to spell it out, should be mentioned here instead of being another rule on its own.

----

That's it. Now, one may notice that I did leave out a few rules. There's reasons for each and I'll explain them now.

Polls and Petitions:
If you guys want feedback, don't limit the methods you get it. While I'll admit, many poll threads on forums are started poorly, just as many can be started well. As for the pages of "/signed" and "/unsigned" posts, this could easily be subverted by adding polling functionality to thread creation. It'll reduce the issue while letting people who agree with an option presented but have no additional feedback to mention at the moment.
Goodbye/Farewell Threads:
These threads are from customers who are quitting your service, why on Earth would you want to limit the chance of finding out why? If the thread degenerates, that's when the moderation team should take action. Again, don't limit the methods available to get feedback from your player-base.
Religion/Politics:
This one would be just fine except for the fact that there is an "Off-Topic" section to the boards. Yes, I understand that such topics are a pain to moderate due to how they can degenerate, however any way they can is already covered by other rules and honestly, if you didn't want to deal with that hornet's nest, you shouldn't have an "Off-Topic" section to begin with.
TOS, COC, EULA: You don't make a rule that says, "Don't break the rules." That's kinda implied. If nothing else, reword it to cover posting of exploits.
Inactivity: No, no, no. To make my point clear:

You would not be. This rule gives us an option to deal with people who no longer play the game but continue to be on the forums in order to cause trouble and violate the community guidelines. Nine times out of ten that person would find themselves banned due to infractable behavior such as trolling or insults, but just in case, we have this rule. I would not expect to see this rule used much around here, either.
Without any idea as to what that one time out of ten is, this rule is meaningless. Either allow inactive players to post or not. If you guys are unable to come up for a reason this rule exists that does not invoke infractions of other rules, there is no reason for it to exist. Especially since, this text already exists:

We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines.

[Kaisoni]

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.
I can see where you're coming from with this one. However I don't think it's really a good idea to ban it. If the original idea is so good that a poster thinks that there is nothing that they feel they can add to it but still want to show that they agree and that there is interest in the idea then "/signed" is pretty much just a less long winded way of saying "I completely agree with this and would like to see it implemented". If they don't completely agree with the idea, then more often than not people WILL say so in their post and will usually say why and what they think.

I will agree however that "/unsigned" without anything additional in the post is pretty worthless. If you don't agree with something then there must to be a reason that you disagree with it, and that information is what makes the post valuable (usually). And if there isn't a reason that you disagree with something then the post is even more worthless. Disagreement without constructive criticism is just as bad as trolling (Personally I'd say it's worse, at least trolling can be entertaining to read in some cases).


18. Illegal activity.
You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws, or regulations.
I'd personally like more clarification on this. Not that I plan to ever intentionally violate this rule, but I really dislike rules that aren't at least somewhat clear. International laws are no problem because as far as I'm aware this game is only played on earth at the moment.

However: local, state and national laws? For where? For where the game servers are located? For the HQ of Turbine (if different from the servers)? For the individual's location? For all places in the world?
This is an international game isn't it? What happens when laws conflict?
Please specify these things, and in the case of it being the laws for where the servers are located or some other specific location then specify that location in the rule if you're going to make a rule like this.

[sephiroth1084]

You would not be. This rule gives us an option to deal with people who no longer play the game but continue to be on the forums in order to cause trouble and violate the community guidelines. Nine times out of ten that person would find themselves banned due to infractable behavior such as trolling or insults, but just in case, we have this rule. I would not expect to see this rule used much around here, either.

Then file this under some other heading--consider my reaction to this. I'm sure others had a similar thought, and I'm sure there would be some people who take a break from DDO and are aware of the TOS and EULA, and feel they are not permitted here. What purpose does that serve?

What is that 10th case where you'd want to restrict someone from using the forums due to their no longer being active in-game, but not because they've racked up enough infractions to be banned?

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm just curious as to how they plan to determine what the "intent" of a given post is.

Having done forum moderation myself (on a SPECIFICALLY religious/political forum, too, talk about Doom), I can tell you any response to "post hurted my feelings" is just going to encourage the chronically butthurt to make nuisances of themselves. Of course, there's no guaranteed way to eliminate this problem, but here are some that help:

1. Moderate based on content, not the snide comments. If there is valuable informational content among snark, the snark is harmless and even useful. Public shaming of staggering absurdity does far more to keep the forum tidy than moderation ever can. Yes, people will complain about it. People also complain about other things that are good for them.
2. Delete posts the vast majority of the time instead of issuing infractions. Infractions should be saved for cases of just nasty, no-content posting. This works especially well with the grammar nazis and the unfortunates who have not yet learned how to communicate in English (for whatever reason) that are their natural prey. If a thread consists of one incoherent post followed by "Whut?" and "I can't understand what you're saying" etc. delete the whole thread and send a message to the OP saying "please try wording that better, thank you".
3. Infractions for malicious reporting should also always be implemented.
4. There needs to always be a line in there about how moderation is not, never will be, isn't intended to be, and doesn't care about being "fair" or "objective". Moderation is the Wrath of God not finely-tuned surgery. Reacting badly to an issued infraction, warning, etc. = insta-ban. This is actually a great way to separate the actual jerks from the merely graceless and mouthy.
5. The "don't feed the troll" policy needs to be one of the strictest policies. "But he started it" is never an excuse.

[Postumus]

I'm just curious as to how they plan to determine what the "intent" of a given post is.



Objectively?

[FlaviusMaximus]

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.


/signed

Ha haaaa. Nailed it.

Good riddance to the grammar police, posts that only read "/signed" or "/notsigned," and goodbye posts. It gets a little old to see players making a big deal of their departure from the game and then posting in the forums two months later like nothing happened.

[HungarianRhapsody]

/signed

Ha haaaa. Nailed it.

Good riddance to the grammar police, posts that only read "/signed" or "/notsigned," and goodbye posts. It gets a little old to see players making a big deal of their departure from the game and then posting in the forums two months later like nothing happened.

/signed.

We should absolutely take on the people who make posts that don't add anything positive and ESPECIALLY the posts that castigate other people for doing things that....

hey, wait. I just noticed something....

[MetropolitanCarl]

11. Polls and Petitions. While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

That is absurd. Several pages of /signed or /unsigned (if you can be bothered to count them) offer a quick insight into the opinions of active forum posters about a specific issue. While, that's not a statistically valid cross-section of the general player community, it is at least a good as asking for "meaningful contributions" in a thread where an "I agree" or "I disagree" would be sufficient--or talking to a Players Council. You should abandon this proposed rule.

We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

Anyone who has ever dealt with In-Game Support or seen hundreds of duped items on the Auction House knows that your ban/suspension/appeal process has huge problems. Banning people who complain about mistreatment by you staff only results in management never hearing about serious problems. I can only assume that's the point of this rule.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

A number of religious groups require their members to publicly proclaim their faith. So doesn't rule 22 indicate you are being intolerant of such groups? Other religious groups require that their members not quietly tolerate various forms of "sexual orientation" or "lifestyle". By removing such posts is Turbine not being intolerant of those beliefs? Does this put make Turbine a "group[] whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their [...] religion"? Does that mean Turbine employees will be banned from the forums? Or perhaps it means that these rules might need a bit of rewording.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

Such threads harm no one and provide a service to the departing player and the community at large. This is probably the most nonsensical rule I've ever seen on a forum. It's nearly offensive. Such a rule could only make even a tiny bit of sense if so many players were leaving, that you were worried about the creation of a preference cascade effect among your remaining player base. Which would mean the game is actually in deep, deep trouble. What that what you were trying to communicate with this rule? If it is not, then you should reconsider it.

[rayworks]

11. Polls and Petitions. While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

That is absurd. Several pages of /signed or /unsigned (if you can be bothered to count them) offer a quick insight into the opinions of active forum posters about a specific issue. While, that's not a statistically valid cross-section of the general player community, it is at least a good as asking for "meaningful contributions" in a thread where an "I agree" or "I disagree" would be sufficient--or talking to a Players Council. You should abandon this proposed rule.

We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

Anyone who has ever dealt with In-Game Support or seen hundreds of duped items on the Auction House knows that your ban/suspension/appeal process has huge problems. Banning people who complain about mistreatment by you staff only results in management never hearing about serious problems. I can only assume that's the point of this rule.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

A number of religious groups require their members to publicly proclaim their faith. So doesn't rule 22 indicate you are being intolerant of such groups? Other religious groups require that their members not quietly tolerate various forms of "sexual orientation" or "lifestyle". By removing such posts is Turbine not being intolerant of those beliefs? Does this put make Turbine a "group[] whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their [...] religion"? Does that mean Turbine employees will be banned from the forums? Or perhaps it means that these rules might need a bit of rewording.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

Such threads harm no one and provide a service to the departing player and the community at large. This is probably the most nonsensical rule I've ever seen on a forum. It's nearly offensive. Such a rule could only make even a tiny bit of sense if so many players were leaving, that you were worried about the creation of a preference cascade effect among your remaining player base. Which would mean the game is actually in deep, deep trouble. What that what you were trying to communicate with this rule? If it is not, then you should reconsider it.

/signed

Metro makes sense. Guidelines need a little work.

[Cordovan]

The new DDO Community Guidelines have been updated. Please click here (https://www.ddo.com/en/community/community-guidelines) to read the Community Guidelines.

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback, we are not specifically calling out the following rules, and have not included them in the updated guidelines:


11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

24. Inactivity.
The DDO forums and web sites are aimed at providing a valuable service to players of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and as such are meant to be used by active players of the game. Moderators may remove forum access to inactive players at their discretion, if it is deemed necessary to promote the overall goals of the web site. (One example would be if a player is no longer playing the game and using their community account to violate the community guidelines.)

If it becomes necessary in the future to add these topics to the Community Guidelines, we'll do it then. Otherwise, the things these rules were meant to address can be dealt with using a different or already-existing rule. I fully expect that this stuff will be a non-issue. Thanks!

[Fedora1]

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback

I am impressed and pleasantly surprised. :)

[Icywave]

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback,

/signed
/approved
/very_happy_we_were_listened_to_on_the_forums
/thanks

[Impaqt]

I'm just curious as to how they plan to determine what the "intent" of a given post is.



I would hope they just use common sense.

People are rarely as sneaky as they think they are.

[geoffhanna]

Nice! And nicely done too :)

[Nascoe]

The new DDO Community Guidelines have been updated. Please click here (https://www.ddo.com/en/community/community-guidelines) to read the Community Guidelines.

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback, we are not specifically calling out the following rules, and have not included them in the updated guidelines:



If it becomes necessary in the future to add these topics to the Community Guidelines, we'll do it then. Otherwise, the things these rules were meant to address can be dealt with using a different or already-existing rule. I fully expect that this stuff will be a non-issue. Thanks!

Thank you for listening to the feedback and reacting to it this way Turbine!

[Missing_Minds]

Still more verbose than I think is necessary (that is a personal opinion) but I like this much more than the previous version.

[BOgre]

Nice to see the changes due to feedback. Thanks.

[zaphear]

Should update the first page to reflect the not-changes to those three rules. I understand Turbine reserves the rights to do whatever they want on these Forums, however if I see them censoring and deleting criticism I'll be quick to deactivate my account.. This game NEEDS to be criticized or we'll all be playing Hello Kitty Happy Adventure Time.

[Holy_Purple_Wolf]

UPDATE: This work has been completed. Thank you everyone for your feedback and input. Some changes were made to the Community Guidelines. The Community Guidelines can be found here (https://www.ddo.com/en/community/community-guidelines). Here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435781-New-DDO-Community-Guidelines?p=5253346&viewfull=1#post5253346) is a post explaining the changes from the original presentation. Thanks!

###

Soon we will be revising our DDO Community Guidelines to largely match a recent update to the Community Guidelines implemented by our friends at Lord of the Rings Online. As some folks may know, both games have shared our Community Guidelines for years, and we plan to bring this update to DDO within the next week or so.

In general, you will find that the rules have not changed. In a few cases we have added specificity to the Community Guidelines to clarify what kinds of violations can lead to which kind of infraction. We found over on LOTRO that players largely preferred these new guidelines due to their increased clarity and readability, but please give us your feedback as well.

One relatively minor change (but something people who have run into this will appreciate) is that when you receive an infraction or warning under the revised rules, we will more clearly explain what the violation is, and there should no longer be instances where text is cut off.

Without further ado, here is the text:

Community Guidelines

The Turbine Community Team strives to foster the community by bringing you up to date information, engaging in discussions, and providing a welcoming environment where players can share their opinions, offer suggestions, and promote their guild, server, and in-game events to each other.

We have created the following guidelines for players to use while participating on the official DDO Community Sites. They are by no means all inclusive. We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines.

Violations of the community guidelines can lead to disciplinary action against your forum account, including but not limited to the permanent removal of your forum privileges and/or game account (Banning). Because every situation is different, all enforcement and application of the community guidelines are at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team. These rules are subject to change without notice; please review them regularly.



1. One person, One Account.
You are permitted one Community account for posting on the Community Sites. Players who are found posting from more than one account will be asked to choose an account for use while posting, and posting privileges will be removed from all other accounts. Additional or secondary accounts created or used for the purpose of trolling, circumventing a ban, or otherwise violating these Community Guidelines may result in the permanent ban of any and all associated Community and Game accounts, at the Turbine Community Team's discretion.

2. Harassing, Insulting and Abusive posts.
We do not tolerate any comments that are abusive or insulting, involve name calling, or attempt to disparage, harass, defraud, threaten or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players, guilds, Fansites, groups, the developers, community team, Turbine/WB employees, or other companies. Doing so is considered a serious offense and will not be tolerated.

3. Grammar Police.
Any post or comment made with the intention of embarrassing another player based on spelling, typos, or grammatical errors is not permitted. Not everyone speaks the same language. Keep in mind that the person you are addressing may not be a native speaker.

4. Calling out other players.
Calling out other players for their actions in game, or attempting to shame them for actions you deem unacceptable, will not be tolerated. If you feel someone has acted in a way that is inappropriate or violates our terms of use, please use the ‘report this post’ option or contact a GM in game to report in-game behaviors.

5. Profanity.
The use of profanity is not permitted on our forums. The forums will filter out specific words, but you are responsible for all words you use whether they are filtered or not. Please do not attempt to circumvent this filter with creative spellings, use of special characters or other means.

6. Derailing/disruption of official discussion threads.
Official threads are created by the Community, Development, and other teams to gather feedback and create a focused discussion around a given topic. Attempting to derail these threads by posting unrelated comments or bringing other issues into the discussion is not permitted.

7. Fabricated and misleading information.
Deliberately posting fabricated or misleading information about another member of the community, other companies, or Turbine/WB or its employees will not be tolerated. We consider this a very serious offense.

8. Provoking, Trolling, and “baiting.”
Threads or posts that are intended to create a strong negative or emotional reaction, provoke conflict, or are made simply for ‘shock value’ are considered trolling. Debating a topic on the merits or holding a strong opinion are acceptable, however making posts to provoke conflict or incite, bait, or mock others who disagree with you are not.

9. “Self Defense” posts.
Please do not respond to attempts to provoke, troll or bait you. Posts you feel violate the community guidelines should be reported using the ‘Report this post’ button. Responding in kind usually results in both parties having actions taken against their accounts.

10. Spam.
Advertisements for any good, service, or site that are not directly related to Dungeons & Dragons Online™ is not permitted and will be removed. Posts promoting sites, goods, and services deemed inappropriate will also be removed as spam. In addition, “Cross posting” without permission, “Bumping” and “Necro posting” are considered forms of spamming and are not permitted.

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

12. Reposting and Quoting.
Do not re-post or quote any materials which violate the Community Guidelines; replies that include quotes of violating material posted by another player may be removed, even if the reply itself contained no offensive content. This includes re-posting a thread or topic which has been previously closed or removed by the Turbine Community Team.

13. Discussion of Disciplinary or Moderations Actions.
We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

14. Impersonation.
Impersonating another community member, guild, famous person, or any Turbine employee is forbidden. This is considered a very serious offense and “it was a joke” is not a valid defense. Impersonation includes, but is not limited to, using images or signatures to suggest you are an employee or any person other than yourself. Making statements claiming you are someone other than yourself, forging, editing, or otherwise modifying posts of a moderator, Turbine employee, or forum member (i.e., “fixed that for you” style edits in quoted texts that change the wording or meaning of a post in an attempt to embarrass or misrepresent the original posters comments) is not permitted.

15. Non-Disclosure Agreements.
You may not post, repost, or link to any information covered under a Non-disclosure agreement (from any source), including but not limited to spoilers, screenshots, and videos.

16. TOS, COC, EULA.
Users must not violate, or promote the violation of, Turbine’s terms of service, codes of conduct or end user license agreements. This includes, but is not limited to, the posting of materials or comments that call out possible exploits or encourage others to participate in exploiting game miscues and errors.

17. Copyrights.
You may not upload or transmit copyrighted material without the express consent of the copyright holder.

18. Illegal activity.
You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws, or regulations.

19. Personal information and Private conversations.
You may not post the personally identifiable information of another user, including but not limited to their real name, address, phone number, email address, or links to personal websites without the express consent of that user. You may not re-post Private Messages, emails, or other private or personal communications of others on the Community Sites without the express consent of the sender.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

21. Inappropriate content.
You may not use, distribute, or spotlight, or post links to sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially, nationally, ethnically offensive content or language, or other content deemed inappropriate at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

24. Inactivity.
The DDO forums and web sites are aimed at providing a valuable service to players of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and as such are meant to be used by active players of the game. Moderators may remove forum access to inactive players at their discretion, if it is deemed necessary to promote the overall goals of the web site. (One example would be if a player is no longer playing the game and using their community account to violate the community guidelines.)





Understanding Warnings, Infractions, and Bans.

Infractions are individual actions taken against your account.
Infractions do not expire.
Each infraction has a point value known as infraction points.

All of the above rules may have one or more severity levels that may result in more or less infraction points being awarded per infraction. A minor violation of a rule may only result in one infraction point being issued while a major violation could result in a 20 point infraction and immediate ban. Infractions typically carry, 1, 2, 3, 5, or 20 infraction points based on severity of the violation.

Some infraction points may expire 30, 60, 90 days or more after being issued. Severe violations can result in points that do not expire, and chronically violating the same rule can extend point expiration time.
Please note: Warnings are not counted against your maximum infraction limit.

Infractions never expire and lead to permanent bans as follows:

• Free to Play accounts: 2 infractions.
• VIP and Premium Accounts: 10 Infractions.

Infraction points may lead to temporary suspensions or permanent bans as follows:

• 5 Active Points: 1 Day
• 10 Active points: 3 day suspension
• 15 Active points: 7 day suspension
• 17 Active points: 3 Month Suspension
• 18 Active Points: 6 Month Suspension
• 20 points (active or otherwise): Permanent

The Community Team reserves the right to assign temporary and permanent bans at will based upon the severity of an infraction.

* Automatic bans based on the number of infractions take all infractions into account, regardless of their Active or Expired status. If an account was above the limit when this change was implemented (August 2010) it will be banned if any further infractions are issued against it.

All visitors to the Community Sites are logged by IP address. We may occasionally ban a user by their IP address. Further abuse by users who have been IP banned may result in an abuse report to the user's internet service provider.



Appealing a Ban:

If your Community account has been banned and you feel this ban is in error or unjustified, ban appeals may be sent through our support page (http://support.turbine.com/ics/support/ticketnewwizard.asp?style=classic&deptID=24001&). (Choose DDO as the game, DDO Community/Forum Support as the support team, and then choose the appropriate option.) Please include your Community account name in all correspondence.

and for others that missed it as well