Greetings DnD, @Devil_Master and I are bringing this topic to the community as a whole for discussion rather than making an executive decision like we had to on Piracy.
- The Question
While this has not become an issue yet, it would be a good idea to start this discussion now rather than later. So, the question is, where will we as a community draw the line between OC and Homebrew posts, and advertising.
- Why This is an Issue
This community is an open space for everyone to share their ideas, questions, stories, art, maps, homebrew, ANYTHING relating to Dungeons and Dragons (within the rules). We do not want to discourage anyone from posting, BUT we have to draw this line because no one wants to be spammed with advertisements.
That being said, there are those who create content for sale on various platforms, which is by no means a bad thing and entirely expected when someone puts their heart and soul into OC content. For example I am talking about OC art prints, OC modules, OC maps, OC homebrew, etc. These things take enormous amounts of time and talent to create and it is completely within those content creator’s rights to ask for payment for their product.
What we as a community need to decide on, is how to define when something goes from content sharing here, to advertising.
- Solution for Discussion
OC content MUST be posted in a way that is freely accessible by users of this community regarding the specific thing posted.
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Artwork - OC Artwork must be viewable here, without paywall, but may be linked in the body text to payable prints, higher resolutions for sale, etc… No comment spam, No reply spam, just a single link in the body text of your post.
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Battlemaps - OC battlemaps must be viewable here, without paywall, in a usable and not excessively downgraded state but may be linked to a payable version of a higher resolution/quality/detail etc.
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Homebrew* - OC Homebrew Content must be posted in a viewable, usable, and not excessively downgraded state but may be linked to a payable version that has higher detail/quality/etc.
*Clarification - Say you have a homebrew race. You can post here at the bare minimum, a basic framework of the race, how to use them, how to create a character with them, etc. and then you may link to a PAID version where maybe you have more details, lore, art, formatted in a way you’d see in official books etc.
Looking forward to the community’s ideas on this topic and establishing a rule set for this in the near future. I think it also goes without saying this will be a living rule set and will be amenable in the future.
Edit: We have also considered the idea of implementing post limits if that becomes an issue, for example if someone wants to show off their art work and link to their site, they can only do so once per week to cut down on the spam.
RE Battlemaps: strongly opposed to allowing them. Lemmy.world already has a battlemaps community. Ttrpg.network is welcome to make such a community too, I suppose. That content works for many more ttrpgs than dnd, so putting it in its own space makes more sense than allowing it in here.
RE artwork, if someone wants to post a hand-drawn scene of their group’s epic win/loss against the bbeg, that’s cool. I think we like seeing dnd success stories from folks, and a picture can be worth a thousand words. But, if that person is open for commissions, I would strongly prefer not to know about it.
IMO advertising needs to be segregated to opt-in communities kept exclusively for that purpose, much like LFG posts get their own space to mot pollute the general discussion.
(Similarly, links out to other sites that have comment sections, like youtube, should IMO be required to have actual supporting text content worthy of discussion, as without it they are just more advertising. That’s outside the scope of the original discussion tho.)
Edit: RE homebrew–IMO it too should be sequestered, as it represents a divergence from everyone else’s frame of reference.
Fine points on everything (minus links), but frankly, until people start actually posting content here, I would rather not splinter the community into more tiny communities. There are nearly 5000 users subscribed to this community, and yet every day 90% of the posts come from me be it news, official art, comics, etc.
Until the lurkers become posters, what’s the point of sequestering anything at all, If a member of [email protected] posts something here, its 1 post out of 50 for the week.
We must drive more posting and sharing before we even consider breaking things out into their own communities, otherwise this community will be nothing but winging and whining about Hasbro/WoTC, 1 line questions with 1 line answers, etc.
Hopefully you understand what I am getting at here.
Oh, certainly! But then, I would avoid coming up with a policy at all until the amount of content reaches critical mass. If you’re not ready for whatever will be the right policy, why bother enacting one that you know you’ll have to walk back or ammend later?
I suppose I wanted the community to know that we are thinking about this before it becomes a problem