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.
I think reddit’s staunch hatred for artists is pretty gross personally, I’m very much in favor of letting artists advertise in the manners outlined in the op.
Once post tags/flairs are implemented it’ll be easy enough for folks who aren’t interested in character art filter it out, and people who are, to actively search for it.
Art is, now, a pretty ingrained part of the DnD/TTRPG culture and I think we should celebrate or at the very least, aide in the self-supporting of the people who create it.
Being able to block a flair/tag inside a community just like we can block a user or an entire sub actually sounds like a great feature.
Personally I despised the amount of character artist advertising that goes on on Reddit’s DnD community. In absence of any way of filtering such things out of my feed on Lemmy, I’ll likely just unsub from any community where that sort of thing becomes the norm.
Personally I don’t see it as a problem when someone posts some art they did (commissioned or otherwise) that has D&D relevance, and in the body of the post mentions “I am taking commissions, DM me for details” or whatever. However, it becomes a problem when they’re posting everything they make, and it’s clear the intention is to fish for sales, not to show off some neat, topical art. It’s very hard to draw up hard and fast rules for this, and I think everyone would have a different idea of what’s ‘too much’.
I think the rules laid out in #1 are pretty straight forward, no spamming the comments, no replying to every comment with your link. Just a single link in the body content of your post. I would expect any DM spamming to also be reported as that’s just rude.
Frankly I just am not interested in people’s character art. To me that is very distantly related to ttrpgs. I join a community like this to discuss what people are actually doing in their games, not to see a bunch of drawings.
Agreed. I never subscribed to /r/dnd because I’m interested in actually playing the game.
to that I would say, this IS the catch all community for DnD. I wish we had post tags of some sort and filters but until then it’s all going to be in one feed. I also think that saying something is “distantly related” is very much just your opinion. As I have said before in other threads, to some people the art IS the best part of DnD. To others the details of the roles and the harrowing adventure, and to others the behind the scenes creation of figures, battle maps, etc… DnD is a very WIDE community and I encourage you to widen your view on it.
Nah, I’ll just unsub from this sub. There are quite a few dnd/TTRPG communities on Lemmy. If this one goes the route of being flooded with starving artists I have no problem unsubbing. That’s part of the beauty of the fediverse.
That’s exactly why we want to have this discussion
I would draw the line at “Does the post provide freely accessable, usable, non spam content?” If it’s just a link to to a store, or a unusability tiny sample of content then it’s an ad. But someone just posting unobtrusivly watermarked art or homebrew along with a donation link is fine and benefits the community. (This seems to mostly align with that)
Some subreddits had truly ridiculous politicies, like removing even very high effort, high quality content if is so much as mentioned the existence of a donation link. (Like r/Minecraft)
Other subreddits had excessively loose rules and got flooded with the same thumbnail sized artwork asking for commissions or advertising paid versions.
Would things like watermarks be considered as “usable and not excessively downgraded state”? I don’t create any OC and am new to the hobby, but that at least seems like a half-decent way for artists to have their stuff available but not in “perfect” condition.
Seems perfectly allowable to me, what we mean by downgraded is someone posting a battlemap in absolute dog shit resolution, just to be able to post a link to their paid version at full quality. To me that would just be a trash post and shouldn’t be here.
Agreed. Those stipulations are what I was used to on Reddit and seemed to work for those communities there. Every post has something for free but there’s a link to more that’s paid. It’s exactly how I found most of the content I’ve bought and subscribed to over the years.
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 !battlemaps@lemmy.world 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
What about artwork with watermarks? Does that constitute an ad?
If its someone else’s art with a watermark, no. If its your own art with a watermark yeah that’s advertising. This would probably have to be a case by case thing, like is this person posting their watermarked art every day? Probably too much.
Sorry for jumping into the conversation so late, but what’s the feeling on podcasts? I have a very small one that I’m quite proud of, and I’d love to share it. I don’t think a post for every new episode release should be allowed, but I feel like an occasional post about milestones or information that others could use should be acceptable. In essence, posts intended to engage with everyone instead of just sell to them.
What’s your release schedule like to begin with? Of it’s weekly thats probably too much, but an episode a month is probably fine to post them here. Otherwise yeah if it’s weekly probably limit it to every once in a while, important episodes or milestones etc
We release every other week, but I like to post maps, stories, and other homebrewed content instead of just saying, “Episode 538 is out now! Please listen to my stuff!”
I do think it’s important to be a member of a community instead of just using a community. So maybe there’s a criteria of interaction that comes along with self-promotion?
Drop a link in my DMs I’ll subscribe! But back on topic, any time you post a map, a DM log or something like that you can feel free to include a link to your podcast in the post body.
