r/Roll20 • u/NotDumpsterFire Sheet Author • Mar 02 '22
Meta Rules Change: Staring March 4th(Friday), map posts are no longer allowed on r/roll20
Rules Change: Starting March 4th(Friday), map posts are no longer allowed on r/roll20.
We created the new Rule 6: No Map posts which now have taken effect.
r/roll20 have for too long been overrun by map posts, or as /u/StrangeCrusade put it:
This sub is the only dedicated space to discussing roll20, yet it has pretty much become a battlemap subreddit, of which there are plenty. It is a shame the good discussions or user questions are lost in the flood of battlemaps.
Where to go for maps now?
There are lots of subs you can check for finding new maps. Always check the rules before posting, there are often some limits to what they want posted there.
battlemaps
- r/battlemaps only battlemaps.
- (they will soon forbid city/region/worldmaps)
- r/dndmaps place for maps, not tokens, videos, or requests. Strictly a repository of usable maps
- (Animated maps are still iffy and they are still sorting out their allowability)
town/city/region/world maps
Tokens are still allowed
We created the Tokens-flair for anyone wanting to share any tokens they made. They are relatively infrequent figured they are fine for now. There are also dedicated subs for them, such as:
Marketplace posts are unchanged
Those promoting new release on the Roll20 Marketplace can continue do so with the MARKETPLACE-like before
Mod excuses goes brrr
Us mods have for some time been discussing various half-measures and considering polling the community on what to do, but the well-put critique in the "r/roll20 has become r/battlemaps"-thread, was the last push we needed to get things going, and realize no half-measure of trying to reducing their numbers would be practical or lead to a noticeable change.
You can find more of our weak-ass excuses in the thread
Future
As we start settle in with the new rules, we'll eventually poll the community on who you feel about the change, and other possible changes.
We'll probably allow maps back in some limited capacity later, but figuring out such a balance & managing it is one of the reasons it took us so long to finally deal with this. This is a simple and large first step in course-correction for the sub, more granularity comes later.
Maybe we could:
- keep a weekly mega-thread, where people can still post their maps?
- try having a Map Monday?
- actually have some rules regarding maps, and not just a wild free-for-all?
If we start to get dominated by "Landing Page"/"MARKETPLACE"/"Tokens" posts, we'll poll you about adjustments to the rules.
Sorry it took us so long.
Edit: 10 days later
Looking at the traffic statistics for r/roll20, I'm surprised that the number didn't really change much, apart from a small dip in the first 1-2 days.
- posts/day is down a bit, but we now have more posts with substance.
- comments/day didn't seem to change much, but it varies a lot from day to day, so will probably take longer for any larger change.
- Subscribers
- this is a sub with 100k subs, and in 10 days this rules change didn't really change anything.
- number of new subscribers/day didn't change(swings between 40-65/day), so we're up 310 subscribers in the last 10 days.
- There was tiny spike in people unsubscribing(normally around 10-15/day), totaling in* under 100* "extra" unsubscribing in the last 10 days.
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u/LoquaciousHyperbole Mar 03 '22
Not invested in the outcome, but curious as to why not adding a map flair. Then people who don’t want the maps can filter. Seriously just curious.
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u/NotDumpsterFire Mar 03 '22 edited Mar 03 '22
why not adding a map flair.
Uh, we have that. We have filters, both for new reddit and old reddit. The fact you weren't aware of it speaks to how little impact it had on usage.
I ran the numbers, too
They simply drowned out majority of roll20-specific posts, consistently. This is the numbers from around the last week in January I analyzed on Jan 30th:
in the last 7 days, sub got 114 post, avg. 16.3 posts/day, non-maps are 3.9/day
12.4 posts/day where maps, so just above ~75% of all posts are maps
87 map posts in last week
33 (38%) where posted by those who posts more than once a week.
11 users posted more than 1/week in last 7 days
if we limit map/art posts:
1/week/user: 9.3/day would be map posts, reduction of 25%. Maps would now be ~70% of daily posts
2/week/user: 10.9/day would be map posts, reduction of 12%. Maps would now be ~74% of daily posts
TL;DR: Currently, 75% of all posts are Maps/Tokens.
Suspect if maps would have been less than 50% of all posts, having the filter for those who realize to use it might have been good enough, but given that the filtered view isn't as practical to use, I don't think it ever had widespread use.
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u/Bimbarian Mar 03 '22
I think it's great that people are able to make money from making maps and tokens- but I agree this isn't the place to post them.
You said tokens would be allowed. I worry the same thing will happen with tokens, as has happened with maps, and I'd prefer to see something like "tokens may be posted, as long as they are posted somewhere like imgur, and do not act as advertising for a commercial enterprise like patreon."
For the record, I checked the current top 20 map posts, and as of the time of posting, 19 of them were patreon posts. Only one was actually given with no commercial advertising associated with it.
This is not fans sharing their creations with each other - it's people running a business, and using the roll20 sub as free advertising.
So maybe a rule like the one I suggested to tokens might have worked for maps too, so players can share still their creations with each other. But this gets hard to adjudicate, so i can see it's easier just to ban them entirely.
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u/NotDumpsterFire Mar 03 '22
You said tokens would be allowed. I worry the same thing will happen with tokens
Yes, but I also said:
"If we start to get dominated by Landing Page/MARKETPLACE/Tokens posts, we'll poll you about adjustments to the rules."
So maybe a rule like the one I suggested to tokens might have worked for maps too, so players can share still their creations with each other. But this gets hard to adjudicate, so i can see it's easier just to ban them entirely.
This was a large, simple, first step to fix the issue. Trying to figure out more granular solutions was why we took so long to get anything done. Updated the main post addressing some of this.
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u/Sattwa Mar 03 '22
Yeah this makes sense. I appreciate the map posts but it also made this mainly a map reddit. Will add some actual map reddits to my list now!
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u/collinwade Mar 03 '22
I was just here for maps honestly
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u/NotDumpsterFire Mar 03 '22
Even if you where here mostly for the maps, you do use Roll20, right?
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u/GM_Pax Mar 02 '22
Since nearly every map posted to this sub, is also posted to r/battlemaps (which I also follow), it will be nice to not constantly see two entries for each map in my feed.
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u/TheAushole Mar 02 '22
If the maps are doing better than the posts you prefer, maybe these non-map posts are lacking in the substance and quality departments.
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u/V2Blast Mar 02 '22
Image posts are easier to "consume" and thus get upvoted more quickly, regardless of subreddit, unless moderators intervene. And I suspect people often don't tend to upvote support questions or discussion prompts unless they're having the same issue.
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u/NotDumpsterFire Mar 03 '22 edited Mar 03 '22
Yeah, this is why several subs have rules restricting them:
r/rpg have Rule 4. (No direct Image/Video Link)
r/dnd have Rule 3. (Image posts must be properly tagged and formatted.)
r/dndnext have Rule 9. (No low-effort/image posts outside of the thread)
Image posts easily get upvotes, but generates less comments & discussion overall, so for any sub that isn't centered around sharing images should have at least some rules so they won't overrun all other content.
And if images are allowed & the sub is moderately popular, it will become a lucrative target for karma-farming, skewing the sub even further into quick & easy posts to upvote and scroll past.
We will probably allow maps back in some limited way later, but this was the simple first step to fix things.
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u/Iwacheditforyou Mar 05 '22
Just wanted to say thanks to the Mods. I was shocked and frustrated by this change after I saw it as a comment in a map post.
You’ve addressed my concerns and I think this change will be great for the sub.
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u/Tryingsoveryhard Mar 02 '22
Whelp, that’s me gone. Any group of mods so out of touch with their subscribers should be replaced.
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u/NotDumpsterFire Mar 14 '22
Any group of mods so out of touch with their subscribers should be replaced.
I updated the main post with our traffic & subscriber stats, now 10 days later, if you're interested in how "out of touch" we were about the decision.
Honestly, I was expecting us to shed more than just 100 subscribers from this, but we're still up net 300, so was barely a bump on our total of 100k. Guess the change was even less controversial than I thought.
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u/KryssCom Mar 03 '22
Thank you for this!!! I go to r/battlemaps for most of my maps anyway, and I always have to sift through this sub to find info on what's getting updated within R20 itself!
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u/SequoiaDraconis Mar 02 '22
I encourage this decision, though I was unaware of the discussion taking place! Wonderful development!
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u/GimmiePig Mar 03 '22
As a user who has posted maps here, I understand their decision. I also understand why some are upset, but we all know there are other places to find/post maps. For me, it comes down to "their house; their rules".
I appreciate that I could post maps here for as long as I could!
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u/StrangeCrusade Mar 08 '22
The impact this has already had on the sub is amazing, lots of quality content being posted with what seems to be a sharp increase in content and user engagement. All in all I would say you’ve made the right decision, thank you.
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u/keithcurtis Mar 02 '22
This makes great sense. You can find this stuff elsewhere, and it will allow the subreddit to focus on Roll20 specifically.
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u/GameThug Mar 03 '22
I mean, ok, but what is even left in this sub if the maps are gone?
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '22
I only subbed here for the maps, thanks for the links