WizO Adele - the overall ethos of the Policy is great.
But, I have several concerns - and would like to discuss several items with you please.
Wizards of the Coast, Inc., reserves the right, but does not assume the responsibility, to restrict communication which Wizards of the Coast, Inc. deems in its discretion to be harmful to individual guests, damaging to the communities which make up Wizards.Community, or in violation of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.'s or any third-party rights.
Before beginning, want to reinforce that I agree that harm-avoidance by avoiding racial, homophobic, etc comments is a great idea.
But having posted for a while now - I've identified another kind of harm. See below, under "On-Topic" section.
off-topic posts or casual chat/IC play in the wrong chatrooms For example:
out-of-character chat in designated in-character rooms
casual chat or non-combat play in designated combat-only rooms, or, conversely, combat play in non-combat rooms
casual chat or free-form role-play in designated structured rules/dice-based game rooms
at WizO discretion, off-topic chat or posts in topic-specific rooms/forums
card trade anywhere other than designated trading areas
Two points:
1. By fiercely regulating the on-topic/off-topic agenda - the policy creates disruption, unease, anxiety, and a sense of intrusion. It's the "will the mallet come out of the sky" factor for a post that is not strictly on-topic.
That is - the policing itself is harmful in this instance. It disrupts sense of Coummunity. Both these points contravene WotC policy.
While 'policing'
is needed to some degree - for the other kinds of harm you've described, I think WotC have gone too far with some of their distinctions.
2. Items frequently
do naturally overlap - and the distinction between "zones" here at WotC is in many senses an artificial dichotomy.
The one that I have the greatest problem with is the role-play/non-role play distinction. Even the players handbook uses role-play "posts" to highlight it's rules by
example.
Role-plays bring dead-code to life - they inspire posters, warm up threads, and have many pro-social functions.
So, what is so wrong about using a role-play example to demonstrate a rule-of order? How do you really separate role-play from rules discussions - when the two are
deeply interactive?
Why is WotC so invested in this particular distinction? And how does WotC's investment into the delineation between Role Play and non Role Play assist to build a better community? How does is stop harm? How does the policy cause harm?
Isn't "community" about fun? And where's the harm in
some overlap?
spamming through repeated posts, or off-topic content by word or intent to boards or lists (e.g. scrolling, flooding, polling, or by "bumping" a boards post more than once in 48 hours)
Spam is a social lubricant. It keeps threads "warm" as opposed to clinical, hard, compassionless and cold. Spam makes us laugh, it can really be used to break the tension. It has a whole host of functions for actually avoiding harm. A whole host of pro (c.f. anti) social functions.
Isn't harm about anti-social behaviour??? So, why should WotC policy discourage pro-social behaviour? What for?
My conclusion is "it's not the spam - it's how you use it". And I would like to see several things changes in WotC policy.
1. Diversification of your policy on the On-Topic/Off-Topic item.
Some off topic posting is impossible to avoid, and is great for thread-life.
2. A revision to acknowledge that your policy, being about harm avoidance, might consider how to "loosen the hold" on some of the areas (see above comments about on-topic/off-topic). The central point being that "policing" is intrinsically threatening - and potentially harmful - and as such, should be used for "real" harm avoidance (ethnic slurring, homophobia) not for an imagined harm (on-topic/off-topic).
3. Acknowledgement that Spamming has multiple uses, and to write a policy that actually permits some spamming - provided the spamming is used for prosocial purposes.
An exmaple "Please use spamming prosocially - and limit it to only a proportion of the thread's content."
E.g. "You may use Role-Plays to highlight a technical point - or to have some fun - but limit the use of role-play posts on non-role-play boards. We recommend no more than about 20% of posts...."
Looking forwards to your comments.
Thank you