I feel the need to say this as it’s affecting everyone at the moment. I’ve read it the forum guidelines and this post won’t break it as it goes under fan community, which includes discussing issues in a CIVIL and MATURE manner.
A lot of authors and I mean a lot, have been receiving hate mail not just in the fanmail but on Instagram too and it’s really disheartening. We are a community of authors who should be helping and supporting each other, not sending others hate up to the point where the author loses motivation and leaves the community. I’m really disturbed by this and something needs to be done.
So I want to make a suggestion. The general section in this forums should be completely removed. This forum should only be for episode related matters. If people would like to discuss other matters, they should do it away from this forum. The reason I made this suggestion is that because of the rise in toxicity. People don’t know how to respect each other’s opinions resulting in mass hate. When people abuse freedom of speech, it should be taken away from them. At least from this platform.
I think people need to be reminded of the rules imposed by episode and pocket gems.
I’ve seen people take screenshots of private/public conversations and publicly post them. That goes against the rules.
Bullying of any kind. Goes against the rules. That includes fanmail and Instagram.
Breaking the story guidelines. That includes being racist, political agendas, promoting hate, suicide, drugs misuse, sexual content, or any other content which is deemed unsuitable for minors (those under the age of 21. Age of 18 if you live in the UK).
Not respecting one another and tearing each other down. That goes under bullying.
For the full rules please consult the forum guidelines and the pocket gems terms and conditions.
You are more that welcome to voice non episode related topics away from the forums but it should not be done on here.
It breaks my heart, seeing wonderful and talented authors leave because of all the hate. It needs to stop. I’m serious. Stop it right now!
Closing down the General Chat section where non Episode related content is posted won’t help as only non Episode related discussion happens there. Anyone else with suggestions feel free to leave them below.
I don’t agree with your suggestion. I can see where you’re coming from, but how would that fix anything? People still go after others no matter if it’s Episode related or not.
And again, general chat allows for people to be able to converse about things other than Episode. Imagine not being able to talk about things outside of school in school. I don’t always like having Episode on my mind 24/7, so I just look at cool stuff like the appreciation threads and the polls thread.
There’s a lot of people who don’t do anything like what you’re describing. It just doesn’t make sense to punish those who did nothing wrong because of a few bad apples.
Yeah, like @SenchaStories and @Phoenix_11037 said, I think of the forums as a place where people that have episode in common can come and talk to people and eventually find other things they have in common with each other, I think closing down the general section will not only make users leave but also make the forums kinda pointless. It would be all of us here just making art and coding, which would be kinda boring… just strictly talking about episode.
Obviously bullying is wrong, but none of us here bully anyone, that’s mostly on Instagram. But on the forums I have never seen a person throw shade at an author, if anything the people here compliment them and makes them feel good about their story, but that’s just me
AI based censorship? I can see the majority of the community feeling uncomfortable about having their content automatically being reviewed, judged and scrutinized by a computer. But I will make sure to bring it up to the team
And then when people start receiving hate on episode related topics, we can then remove that section too, shut down the forums and live happily ever after.
From what I know of it, it mainly detects swear words and ad hominem attacks and you can adjust how severe it is! I think it’s good that it just flags the mods. I know Wattpad used to have it but I don’t know if they do any more because I haven’t triggered it
Thank you Nick. Any ideas on how we can moderate non episode general discussions?
Maybe we can keep discussions light and not discuss any political things like race/religion/politics etc. Maybe stuff like TV shows/music or even get a chance to learn about a new culture. I dunno
I completely agree with most of what you are saying and I think you have all the right intentions. However, the general chat is mostly quite a positive place on the forums. People are able to open up about things that they mightn’t want to talk to people they actually know about. It can also be used to show gratitude to people in the community, find people with common interests to you about things not related to episode and discuss some important issues.
With that there does come the bullying of some authors on this category. Even if they did remove the category the bullying will just continue elsewhere. I think a better solution is to encourage people to be kinder and if you do happen to come across a topic like this to report the post and ask them to get their topic closed.
Also the plug-in sounds like a good idea as long as it isn’t too restricting.
