Post by Broughy1322 on Jul 3, 2015 11:12:54 GMT
So recently the shoutbox was removed and repurposed into a place for announcements. For those who don't know, the shoutbox was placed at the very bottom of the forum and was an instant chat feature.
The reason it was removed initially was a knee-jerk reaction to very problematic content being posted on there. Things that would be going against our guidelines quite severely and it was easier to remove it for a "cool-down" period. Because of the nature of the shoutbox this turned into a decision to repurpose it completely as a place for announcements instead, especially given the recent introduction of slack as being the main place for random chat in the crew. This wasn't communicated very well though and for that I apologise.
The shoutbox poses a number of headaches in terms of moderation. Only full commissioners can delete shoutbox messages if they are offensive, deputies can't and the functionality isn't there to make that possible (or to give anyone else that ability without making them full commissioners). In addition, there are no auto-moderation aspects to it that you may find in other chats such as the things nightbot does for twitch, meaning if nobody is online it can't be moderated. We also can't restrict spamming or stop people posting one after another in quick succession. It's basically not fit for purpose and given we now have the Slack and mumble programs I personally feel it makes more sense to just have everyone together chatting there.
Having said that there were some who were fond of the shoutbox and used it frequently, asking questions or just chatting in general. For that reason there was some discontent when it was removed, and I've created this poll to choose how we go forward. Do we keep it as it is now - a place for announcements and promoting crew run events at the top of the first page, or do we bring it back as it was. Those are the only options available to us given the limited functionality of the feature.
So vote in the poll and let me know. We'll go with what you guys want.
The reason it was removed initially was a knee-jerk reaction to very problematic content being posted on there. Things that would be going against our guidelines quite severely and it was easier to remove it for a "cool-down" period. Because of the nature of the shoutbox this turned into a decision to repurpose it completely as a place for announcements instead, especially given the recent introduction of slack as being the main place for random chat in the crew. This wasn't communicated very well though and for that I apologise.
The shoutbox poses a number of headaches in terms of moderation. Only full commissioners can delete shoutbox messages if they are offensive, deputies can't and the functionality isn't there to make that possible (or to give anyone else that ability without making them full commissioners). In addition, there are no auto-moderation aspects to it that you may find in other chats such as the things nightbot does for twitch, meaning if nobody is online it can't be moderated. We also can't restrict spamming or stop people posting one after another in quick succession. It's basically not fit for purpose and given we now have the Slack and mumble programs I personally feel it makes more sense to just have everyone together chatting there.
Having said that there were some who were fond of the shoutbox and used it frequently, asking questions or just chatting in general. For that reason there was some discontent when it was removed, and I've created this poll to choose how we go forward. Do we keep it as it is now - a place for announcements and promoting crew run events at the top of the first page, or do we bring it back as it was. Those are the only options available to us given the limited functionality of the feature.
So vote in the poll and let me know. We'll go with what you guys want.