Update 3/31: If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback post them in Let Us Know! Community Outreach Hub for New Rules/Site Changes.
With help of @Krodmandoon and @HeftyTotem I am happy to finally announce that our rules rework is done! It may still need some tweaking here and there but we wanted to try to get it out to everyone before they go into effect when we reopen Projects on the 31st.
That being said, this was done on a really short time frame so we could get Projects reopened asap. While it would have been nice to try to get some feedback beforehand we just didnāt have the time in this particular instance. We do plan on a soft review phase through all of April though to try to make up for that. We are not likely going to make any large changes unless there is something we just completely missed, but we plan on making small tweaks here based on feedback on how some of the rules end up working out in practice.
Before I go to far down that rabbit hole though, let me introduce one of our new mods!
Welcome @HeftyTotem As One Of Our New Mods!
Some of you may have already seen @HeftyTotem answering questions in some of the Site Info > News topics. I was not planning on bringing them in yet, but they asked if they could help handle communication for us while @Krodmandoon and I worked on getting everything sorted and ready for the 31st.
This is the first time @HeftyTotem will be moderating a public forum, but they have a great deal of experience helping moderate discord servers and impressed both Krod and I the few times we worked with them on cross server moderation issues. They will be coming on right below Krod and acting as their XO of sorts and stepping in as head mod whenever Krod needs a break or canāt be around.
To help us focus on getting everything ready for reopening the Projects section they will be trying their best to answer any questions in my place.
Overview of the Rules Rework
A link to the current rules can be found here. Below will be a summary and explanation of some of the larger points and changes that will be taking place.
While the rules page is quite large now, for a lot of long time members they will notice not a lot has changed from our old rules (Outdated). We know there have been issues in the past with some of the rules being unclear or vague with the users, so a lot of what we tried to do was to break them out, make them a bit more defined, and provide examples where able.
We also tried to provide examples of the possible moderation actions that could be taken to give everyone an idea of what could happen for breaking certain rules.
That all being said there are some big changes that I want to ensure everyone is aware of.
Changes to Unacceptable Behavior & Uncivil Behavior Rules
There is actually not much that changed here in terms of rules, but how we are going to be enforcing them is going to change up a bit. The old warn and then enforce way we used to do things just doesnāt work anymore, and I have always been hesitant to jump to measures like temporary silencing or suspension of accounts even when that would have been the right call.
The site is now too big for me to have our mods have their hands tied as much as I did. Especially when it comes to Unacceptable Behavior, such as harassment, callouts, and vigilantism. So I am giving the mods more leeway to take decisive action when they feel it is needed to maintain a civil and respective atmosphere on the forums.
That also being said, with the new tagging requirements we expect users to make use of the fact you can filter content on your profile to filter out content you donāt want to interact with. We will drop a tutorial in Site Info > How to/Help with details on how to do this before we open back up on the 31st.
Updates to Posting to Projects
As some of you may already know, I have made quite a few changes to the tagging requirements for topics being made in Projects. The system now wont allow projects to be posted if they are missing certain tags. The new required tags are:
- Paid Content - If the project is free, patreon, pay what you want, ect
- Releases - If the project is in development, canceled, released, ect
- Platform - What platforms can a game run on, Windows, Linux, Web, ect
- Video Game Genre
- Generative Content Disclosure
To see the specific tags required look for the specific categories in the tags page.
This isnāt the only change we are making though. I spent quite a long time talking with Krod, and after talking it out with him he thought we could handle trying requiring mod approval before topics get posted to Projects especially with the new team. We have always had this option but I was worried it would put to much pressure on a volunteer team so didnāt want to pull the trigger on that option. Krod thinks we could handle it though and I am willing to give it a try so we are going to be requiring projects to have to be reviewed by a mod before they are fully posted to Projects.
The way this works is when a dev tries to make a new project one of the mods gets tagged for review. Once the mod has a chance to review the project topic they can approve it and the new topic will be created in Projects. We donāt want this to be a big barrier to entry and its more to ensure Projects stays a bit more organized as well as hopefully address fears of the community being scammed by bad actors.
Basically the rough requirements are as follows:
For Free Game Projects
For games where the dev is wanting to do it for fun and give it away for free we just want to ensure that there is at least a foundation in place and that it wouldnāt fit better in Project Ideas & Discussion if they are just testing if there is interest in a concept, or Job Board if they are looking to build a team before starting development.
We will just be asking for any proof that the project is more then just an idea. Concept art, a rough GDD, or even just a detailed description of what they are planning is acceptable. As long as they can show us that and as long as their project is not in violation of any of our rules we will allow the project topic to be created.
It should be noted, that it is ok for these games to ask for donations or people to join their patreon for support. How we decide if a game is paid or not is if access to it or certain content is paywalled or not.
For Game Projects That Are Paid or Have Paywalled Content
We have stricter requirements for projects where the dev is intending to ask for money for access to their game or major chunks of content of their game. In these cases we will be asking for proof that there is at least something that runs there.
Mods may ask for devs to submit an application or grant us temporary access to ensure that there is something there.
You can find the rules detailed in Posting Game Project section of the rules. These rules also only apply to new projects and wont be applied retroactively.
Topics in Projects Will Now Lock if Inactive for 1 Year
While I have been personally against locking projects except when absolutely needed, both Krod and Hefty made some good points about how locking the topics after a reasonable time of inactivity would be a good thing, and help keep things organized and allow active and new projects more of the spotlight.
Due to this I am configuring an auto lock on all the project topics. If a project topic has not had some one post on it for more then a year it will auto lock. That being said if a dev comes back and wants to post an update they can message any the mods at any time and we can unlock it for them.
Firm Definition of AI Generated Content
We have landed on a firm definition for what we are going to be using to decide what is and isnāt AIGC. Generally speaking we are using something close to the disclosure rules used by Valve, but slightly stricter.
Basically, if the content was created via a prompt (user facing or not) it is AIGC.
There are some exceptions to this though.
First, AI enabled tools like Intellisense or advanced auto complete tools wont be counted as AIGC. This is mainly from a stance of practicality as most IDEs include these anymore and most people use them without even realizing it. Also, since these tools try to predict a users intent instead of working off a vague prompt like make me a picture of a fat lady the content produced by these tools would fit what is considered human authored content as put forward by the US copyright office in their open letters on copyrighting AIGC.
Second, machine translation is being classified as its own distinct thing. Even though things like google translate are technically AIGC, many people classify them differently due to their more specialized purpose and the fact it has been around for so long. We are still forcing it to be tagged where required, but it doesnāt fall under the same AIGC filters allowing each user to decide if they want to make that distinction or not.
For more info read our Definition of AI Generated Content.
Allowing Users to Ask For Updates & Discuss Project Statuses More Freely
With all these crackdowns we are actually loosening up our long time ban on asking for updates and discussing project statuses. These rules came from my old days when I ran heavily modded Minecraft servers for people. I saw modders quitting their projects due to the pressure of constantly being spammed with āwhen is the next update?ā questions and users declaring a mod as dead when an update did not come out fast enough.
But times have changed, and this was a change I have been wanting to do for years but just didnāt have the time to really think it out until now.
Basically we are going to allow users to ask when the next update is coming out now, but we do so under the expectation that users do their due diligence to ensure they are not asking if some one already did a few posts up.
And as far as discussing project statuses go we are just asking that users refrain from stating if a project is dead with certainty but without proof. If there is something you can point to like a discord message or a patreon post that shows the project has been dropped for example, then it is fine. Otherwise, even though it seems small, there can be a big difference between saying this project is dead and I think this project is dead.
I would encourage everyone to look over the Ask For Updates & Discuss Project Statuses sections for a clearer idea of what we will be looking for and are expecting.
AI Generated Content Will Be Hidden by Default for New Users
Finally, with the new tagging system in place we are also making an alteration to the default settings for users. Starting on the 31st when a new user creates a forum account AIGC will be filtered for them by default.
The main reason for this is due to how we have to work around things with discourse its easier for a user to remove a tag then for us to tell them to add it. I will also be updating the welcome message to provide a link right to the section of their user profile where they can remove that tag from their filter if they want to see everything.
A few things to note:
- This does not affect people who browse logged out our without an account
- We can not apply this change retroactively so existing users will still have to add it to their filters themselves. We are working at providing an easily accessible guide to help accommodate that.
Link to the New Rules Page
I would encourage everyone to look at the rules page and give it a read. If you have any thoughts or concerns feel free to post them below and @HeftyTotem will make sure I donāt miss them.
