Proposed Community Guidelines Change: Goodbye Threads

[Cordovan]

As some of you may know, back in February we updated the Community Guidelines to be more clear, and to be more explicit about a handful of longstanding practices to make sure that they were described in detail. After considering your feedback, there were a handful of rules that we ended up - not - including in the final Community Guidelines.

From the post last February:

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!

In recent days, several community members have raised the idea that we should explicitly spell out our longstanding practice of closing Goodbye threads. Let's talk about it! Keep the following things in mind:

1. The question is not whether we will continue to close goodbye threads. This is not up for debate. We have never allowed these threads to remain open, and will continue to close goodbye threads with a message wishing the person saying goodbye the best of luck in the future, and with a hope that they return to the game soon.

2. The rule's inclusion is not meant to "let us ban people" who say goodbye. Any infractions from goodbye posts would be made in context, based on the intention of the thread itself. For example, saying "I quit because Dev X suxxors" would be eligible for infraction, not because it's a goodbye thread, but because it's insulting. We very rarely take disciplinary action against people posting goodbye, although if the community wished us to be more harsh in this regard, please let us know.

3. The main reason for the rule's inclusion, and the reason it was initially presented as a possible revision to the Community Guidelines, was to be more explicit about why we close goodbye threads, so people (who read the rules, and everyone reads them, right? ) can understand why we take the action we do.

I initially was hesitant to remove the Goodbye rule, but was swayed to do so based on the large amount of community feedback on the subject. Since it appears that some members of the community disagree with the initial decision on the matter, I'd like to take a day or two to re-consider it.

Please remember that this thread does not give folks carte blanche to discuss moderator activity or specific actions taken against people in the past in a general way. Stay on target! Thanks.

[Luxgolg]

You could possibly just make a sub-forum and move them there in a non-reply environment after leaving them live for say 24 hours. Clean out the garbage, leave it open for discussion for a short period. And put it in a fare-the-well section.

[danotmano1998]

I think the current policy is fair.

You close them when you get around to it, and infract only those that deserve it for breaking other guidelines.
Simple and understandable.

So long as it's posted that they will be closed by moderators, I see no harm in it whatsoever. Carry on!

[redspecter23]

You could possibly just make a sub-forum and move them there in a non-reply environment after leaving them live for say 24 hours. Clean out the garbage, leave it open for discussion for a short period. And put it in a fare-the-well section.

That's similar to my thought as well. If it's not necessarily the goodbye that's destructive, but the replies that come after. Let people say their goodbye in a format that doesn't allow replies. The community has been notified which is a good thing for friends or guildmates that might not know the player was leaving and you remove the potential for the disastrous replies that always seem to follow.

I suppose there is some negativity involved with having an entire subforum devoted to people leaving the game. Doesn't seem like something you'd want on an official forum.

At any rate, I agree that in general, people posting goodbye threads shouldn't be punished with infractions. It wouldn't matter anyway if they are actually leaving. The respondents would be the ones leaving themselves open for infractions, which begs the question, Is a goodbye thread just a troll thread in disguise? Is it there only to serve as a means to trap other people into gaining infractions? If this is true and you could call it a troll thread, then it should be stopped immediately.

I guess I'm still on the fence. There is some good from goodbye threads, but they always devolve into something that would be worthy of closing the thread.

[Thumbed_Servant]

We should be able to say goodbye in the forums. Some players know many people and saying goodbye one by one could be difficult. As long as the posters follow the other guidelines. The rules as you have them now seem fair and balanced. Closing the threads after a period of time is done to keep them from degenerating and I understand that. I don't think you need any changes.

[Roland_D'Arabel]

Close them. Let them be posted, moderate any inappropriate postings with infractions and or post/thread removal.

Some folks have a large group of acquaintances on a server or across multiple servers and they feel the need to say goodbye for legitimate reasons in a forum where a good deal of their friends etc. will see the thread; so let them do so and close and then close the thread.

Amend the guidelines to reflect this policy.

[Krell]

I always thought goodbyes should be directed to people that know you. Guild sites, guild chat, PM's to forum friends, /tell friends in game, etc. Posts in general chat always struck me as public venting. It is rarely just a goodbye to everyone I've played or talked with on the forums so people don't wonder why I'm not around. It is more often I'm quitting because I don't like these things about the game, or because of something that happened to me. It seems to me that the current process of closing them after a short time is reasonable, compared to just deleting them. If someone is really looking for a forum buddy, they can do a search and see they left.

[patang01]

As some of you may know, back in February we updated the Community Guidelines to be more clear, and to be more explicit about a handful of longstanding practices to make sure that they were described in detail. After considering your feedback, there were a handful of rules that we ended up - not - including in the final Community Guidelines.

From the post last February:



In recent days, several community members have raised the idea that we should explicitly spell out our longstanding practice of closing Goodbye threads. Let's talk about it! Keep the following things in mind:

1. The question is not whether we will continue to close goodbye threads. This is not up for debate. We have never allowed these threads to remain open, and will continue to close goodbye threads with a message wishing the person saying goodbye the best of luck in the future, and with a hope that they return to the game soon.

2. The rule's inclusion is not meant to "let us ban people" who say goodbye. Any infractions from goodbye posts would be made in context, based on the intention of the thread itself. For example, saying "I quit because Dev X suxxors" would be eligible for infraction, not because it's a goodbye thread, but because it's insulting. We very rarely take disciplinary action against people posting goodbye, although if the community wished us to be more harsh in this regard, please let us know.

3. The main reason for the rule's inclusion, and the reason it was initially presented as a possible revision to the Community Guidelines, was to be more explicit about why we close goodbye threads, so people (who read the rules, and everyone reads them, right? ) can understand why we take the action we do.

I initially was hesitant to remove the Goodbye rule, but was swayed to do so based on the large amount of community feedback on the subject. Since it appears that some members of the community disagree with the initial decision on the matter, I'd like to take a day or two to re-consider it.

Please remember that this thread does not give folks carte blanche to discuss moderator activity or specific actions taken against people in the past in a general way. Stay on target! Thanks.

I say include it, it makes things clear, no matter if philosophically it's implied and covered by other rules. Look at it like this

In legal texts I think it's important to spell out that murder is illegal, even if you could technically state that any rule covering 'lethal form of violence' should do it. People love to argue philosophy but in the end if you make it clear, however redundant, it's better than having to rehash the fact that it is covered by the nature of how goodbye threads sorta spiral out of control. Overstated is always better than implied.

[Enoach]

Personally I think much of the past few postings concerning the closing of "Goodbye" threads is blown out of proportion.

The problem with goodbye threads on forums is that they can devolve.

Personally I find the policy of closing a goodbye thread to be a fair practice as it avoids problems and in essence goodbye threads are not two way discussions anyway.

If a policy needs to be spelled out, it should simply be:

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. To preserve the message of these posts we will close these threads. Any part of these posts or replies that fall under other policies will be handled based on the community guideline.

[Ivan_Milic]

Limit goodbye threads to server forums, no point in having it in general discussion.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I dislike your policy of closing Goodbye threads. But since it's the policy itself that I dislike rather than the inclusion in the community guidelines, I'd prefer to see it listed instead of being a hidden policy.

As long as the policy listed in the guidelines states that it's okay to post Goodbye threads, but that you will usually close them rather than simply stating that Goodbye threads are forbidden, then I think we would all benefit from the additional clarity. Having official policies that aren't written down in a place where the community can see them is a bad policy as far as I'm concerned.

[Havok.cry]

Personally I would leave it as it is.

What I would do is remove the thread that keeps getting quoted by people who never actually read the thread, beyond the initial post, and find out how (or even that) it was resolved (and of course all the silly (silly is my opinion and not an attack or a statement of fact) threads that quoted it). It keeps happening over and over, and it seems like a lot of the people who bring it up don't actually know what happened. If they can't find and quote it anymore, it may curtail that stuff.

Personally I question people who are going back that far in the forums and finding stuff like that. Don't they have something better to do with their time? Like play a game, or argue about whether or not Teh_Troll should get heals or Hjeals, and how many devs and forum posters have become his (its?) minions?

Doing this would also give us more fodder for conspiracy theories (OMG they are trying to hide it from us /endofworld /wrists) and those are always more entertaining than this mess has been.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Personally I would leave it as it is.

What I would do is remove the thread that keeps getting quoted by people who never actually read the thread, beyond the initial post, and find out how (or even that) it was resolved (and of course all the silly threads that quoted it). It keeps happening over and over, and none of the people "panicking" over it actually have a clue as to what happened. If they can't find and quote it anymore, it may curtail that stuff. Of course those people will likely just look for something else to dredge up and panic over.

Personally I question people who are going back that far in the forums and finding stuff like that. Don't they have something better to do with their time? Like play a game, or argue about whether or not Teh_Troll should get heals or Hjeals, and how many devs and forum posters have become his (its?) minions?

Doing this would also give us more fodder for conspiracy theories (OMG they are trying to hide it from us /endofworld /wrists) and those are always more entertaining than this mess has been.

...or at least modify the initial post in that thread so that people have the updated information.

[Teh_Troll]

can we still ask people for their stuffs?

[xberto]

I think the current policies regarding Goodbye threads are fair. Hopefully Turbine will continue to make a great game so that most of us will not need to worry about goodbye threads.


Oh and this ....

can we still ask people for their stuffs?

[Rapthorn]

Personally I think closing the thread should be based on the initial post more than anything because the initial post is what sets the tone. I've seen plenty goodbye threads from way back when that never ended poorly in any way shape or form because the initial post set a reasonable tone.

For example: Someone saying they are leaving the game due to real life issues (comp dead, no time, new job...) is a thread that likely never needs to be closed at all. Someone else saying they are leaving the game because drop rates suck, no end game, p2w, or other such nonsense are the ones that will devolve.

Why such a "set in stone" attitude about goodbye threads then is my question. There are hundreds of threads on this forum that just reading the title I know will turn into a flame fest and yet they linger and in some cases seem to be a weekly occurrence (merge the servers anyone?). If the object is to close threads before they devolve then at least half the threads currently the most viewed needed to be closed immediately, and quite frankly I think that would be silly. A thread should be closed when, not if it might, devolve.

Therefore my answer to the goodbye thread "problem" is to moderate it when it needs moderation otherwise leave it alone, much like most of the other threads out there.

[Grace_ana]

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait to close them when they devolve instead of assuming they will? I mean, if even the first goodbye post is bad, that's one thing. But if it's just a nice "Hey, thanks everyone for playing with me" and the posts afterward are fine, why close it? It's a positive expression of community, something I think we need more of, not less. If one or two people insist on sullying an overwhelmingly positive thread, then moderate those particular posts.

[Scraap]

1. The question is not whether we will continue to close goodbye threads. This is not up for debate. We have never allowed these threads to remain open, and will continue to close goodbye threads with a message wishing the person saying goodbye the best of luck in the future, and with a hope that they return to the game soon.

If you have no intention whatsoever of discussing the merits of the policy, then by all means, simply be up-front about it by inclusion in the posted ruleset. I'd have more to say on the matter, but if it's not up for consideration, then there's really no point in wasting the e-breath.

[viktorserak]

I honestly dont understand why this is an issue woth spending time on discussing.

Current situation is absolutely fine.

Someone leaves the game and wants to say goodbye and perhaps a few words.

Someone asks Can I haz your stuff and someone posts Mariocarts.

I really think its kinda funny and cute.

And ofc, if the person that is leaving is somehow well known on the forums, then thi is the way to say goodbye to people that actually care a little.

So, I say - keep the current job of eventually closing the threads, wishing the player all the best and stuff.

[Engoril]

I initially was hesitant to remove the Goodbye rule, but was swayed to do so based on the large amount of community feedback on the subject. Since it appears that some members of the community disagree with the initial decision on the matter, I'd like to take a day or two to re-consider it.

You close good-bye threads that haven't violated any community guideline. Assuming they will eventual violate and closing them in advance because of that is like banning someone because you think they will use an exploit sometime in the future even if they haven't done so yet.

You close good-bye threads solely because they are good-bye threads, not because they have violated your other rules.

Therefore this needs to be explicitly stated so everyone is clear about it.