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Discord General Chat Changes
Entry posted by Ben Wright in United Kingdom ·
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Last Sunday we announced the removal of the ‘general-chat’ channel within Discord. Clearly this was an emotive subject for many of our members, and we pledged to thoroughly review this decision before committing to making changes. It was pointed out by many, and evident on review, that the brevity of the announcement and lack of clear explanation for this action was a mistake, and I would like to apologise for the confusion this has caused. The purpose of this post is to update you all on our plans for the way forward and to provide you with an explanation as to why we think these changes are necessary.
What was announced?
I announced that we were removing the ‘general-chat’ channel from the VATSIM UK Discord server and creating a new channel, ‘sim-chat’, in its place. It was intended that this new channel would be a place for all members to chat about flight simulation, aviation and the VATSIM network.
Why did we announce the removal of general-chat?
Over the last year or more, various members of the DSG have received formal and informal feedback from the community about dissatisfaction with certain content in our Discord. A lot of this negative feedback was centred around ‘general-chat’. Prior to my appointment as Division Director, Chris and the DSG worked to expand our moderation team as an effort to improve in this area, however despite this, many DSG members received feedback over the last 6 months indicating we needed to do more. Evident to us, but also highlighted by members, was that general-chat is frequently abused with irrelevant posts, which has led to many members muting the channel and not taking part in discussion. From our internal discussion on the DSG, we are also aware it has become the place where a small minority of individuals push the boundaries of our rules. This has created an unpleasant, at times toxic atmosphere which the DSG, after lengthy discussions, decided on the need to address this better.
The initial plan we announced was to remove general-chat, moving the focus of discussion back towards our uniting interest in aviation and flight simulation. We hoped this would encourage the sort of positive discussion we want to see between members and reduce the tendency for the discussion to stray off topic. With hindsight, we did not give enough thought to the majority of members who do use general-chat in the way it is intended and enjoy having a forum to have off-topic conversations. We received immediate feedback via Discord regarding this and 2 members of the DSG and I were in a lengthy Discord voice conversation to hear your thoughts and debate. We took away a number of suggestions which were discussed at length during the following night’s DSG meeting.
This has been an active topic of discussion for the DSG over the last month in particular - long before the events of the past week - and the subject of much debate and disagreement between us. The decision to remove ‘general-chat’ was one made without complete agreement amongst ourselves and as a result, ultimately by me. Invariably when we disagree in wanting to improve the Division, the perfect decision is not always apparent, however I can assure you that myself and the DSG are working tirelessly in pursuit of this goal for the benefit of our community. Politics and bureaucracy play no part in our motive - as members of the community ourselves, we simply want this place to be the best it can be.
Will we still be going ahead with these changes?
The short answer is not immediately, pending a review period. After reflecting upon your feedback and suggestions, we want to see if there is an alternative way to achieve the same goal, one which also provides our members with an off-topic social space. We will continue to review whether these changes have achieved their goal and if we need to revert to the previous course of action.
What will happen now?
We still feel that our main social space should be more reflective of our community’s interests and provide a welcoming, engaging space for our newest members. A number of members suggested that they would still enjoy a place to discuss subjects that are entirely off-topic. We are conscious that the actions of a small minority within our Division should not subtract from the enjoyment of the rest, and therefore we will be adding 2 channels ‘vatsim-chat’ and ‘off-topic’ to replace the role of ‘general-chat’ in our discord. The name ‘vatsim-chat’ better reflects the topics of conversation we would expect in our main chat channel, and this will become our main chat channel for all members.
The ‘off-topic’ channel will be introduced as a trial, and will be an opt-in, off-topic channel which will appear at the bottom of our channel list. This channel will still be subject to our Terms and Conditions and therefore content which breaches these terms will still be moderated. This includes inflammatory, or spam content; however our moderators will be allowing conversations in this channel outside the topics of aviation and flight simulation, provided they are friendly and not in bad taste.
In addition to these channel changes, we will be adding several items to our terms and conditions to more effectively target those individuals causing disruption and pushing the limits of acceptable content. We are adding the following clause to Section 1:
QuoteRegardless of these terms, members will conduct themselves in a cordial and socially acceptable manner. Any unwelcome behaviour, bullying or repetitive sharing of unwelcome content on our Services will be subject to moderation.
Furthermore, we will seek to exclude these people from our community for longer periods if they consistently demonstrate poor behaviour. This is achieved through the revision of clause 1.7, which will read as follows:
QuoteWhere a member has broken the Terms & Conditions, they will be subject to moderation at the discretion of our moderation team and they may have their access to all VATSIM UK services removed, either temporarily or permanently. In this instance, the member will be notified by email informing them of the reasons for removal.
If a member feels that disciplinary action brought upon themselves was unfair, unjust or disproportionate, they must contact the DSG via a Helpdesk ticket to 'Management'. A member shall be notified of the outcome of their appeal within 5 days of the appeal being submitted. Once an outcome has been given and the member notified, there is no further right to appeal and the decision of the appeal is final. Public discussion of any appeals is an automatic right for removal.
When will these changes take place?
These changes will be made over the coming week (commencing 24th June) to allow as many members to be informed of these changes in advance as possible. We will provide additional notice when these changes take place via the division announcements Discord channel.
Do you plan any future changes?
We will monitor the behaviour in discord and the effective use of these channels over the coming months. If we continue to see trends of poor behaviour, we are likely to re-discuss restricting further off-topic or general discussion channels. We would encourage members to call out bad behaviour or report it to our moderators so that you can continue to enjoy the channels you use.
We would like to invite further suggestions on channels that you would like to see in our Discord. These could be permanent channels to allow our members to discuss common interests, for example a ‘coding-chat’, or short-term channels designed to encourage discussion of upcoming events such as a ‘pmdg-777-chat’. We will be creating a thread within ‘vatsim-chat’ following the implementation of these changes for suggestions to be made. Alternatively, you can respond with your suggestions below.
Finally, I would like to thank those of you who have reached out to myself and the rest of the DSG, as well as those of you who joined us on Sunday evening for what was a largely productive conversation. We are always looking for ways in which we can reduce the perceived gap between staff and the membership, and in furtherance of this goal we are happy to announce regular town hall sessions for our community to make suggestions, provide feedback, or to just simply have a chat. A date for the first session is currently being decided upon, but we will share further information via a separate post once we are able.
- Darren Hill
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