Where is everyone?

[GreeneStreet]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:12am

This place seems dead this morning. Is everyone doing okay?

[CedricOates]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:13am

It’s like when your parents yelled at you as a kid, and you don’t want to see them for a while. Lol.

[CedricOates]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:13am

It’s like when your parents yelled at you as a kid, and you don’t want to see them for a while. Lol.

[GreeneStreet]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:14am

What happend?

[JSquared2]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:15am

It seems some of the kiddies picked up their Legos last night and went home.  They'll be back soon enough.

 

[GreeneStreet]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:16am

I miss one day, one day I tell ya!

[GreeneStreet]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:26am

Does this sort of thing happen often?

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:30am

Someone fill me in, what happened?

[Moderator]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:34am

For those curious, last night there was an incident in which a number of posters violated our rules in response to social media posts from a handful of Broadway performers. From there, in trying to manage the situation as it escalated, a number of other posters responded with genuine concerns, which I can guarantee were heard, understood, and appreciated.

However, the combination of the personal attacks, the questions about the attacks, and attacks on BWW itself became a larger issue both online and off line, so we decided to close down the conversation for last night, and we reopened the boards this morning.

As we said in the post pinned at the top of the board, we are evaluating a number of different measures internally this morning to address the ever-changing world of online communication, and how we want BWW to be a part of that. As final decisions are made, we will roll those out, and inform all board users of what's been done and how those choices were made. 

In all honesty, one of the biggest issues is trying to figure out how best to respect our user’s freedom of discussion while also balancing our obligations as members of the Broadway community; one known for kindness, inclusion, and understanding. These are both incredibly important parts of who BWW is, but when they occasionally come into conflict, it creates difficult decisions, which I'd imagine that many of you can understand. 

Thank you for your interest in creating an informative and positive place to discuss theatre!

Updated On: 12/10/18 at 11:34 AM

[GreeneStreet]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:40am

Ahh I see. Last night I witnessed accounts be muted, threads be deleted from years ago. Random users posts being deleted. Do we know why that happend? Or was that what you stated there^

Also sorry mods, if I come off rude, not my intention at all! Just curious.

[Moderator]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:47am

I cannot directly speak to the specifics as to why individual posts/threads were removed, but, yes, I think that you would be safe in assuming that those were a part of the incident last night. As I said earlier though, if there were things that were deleted en masse, all of the legitimate points and concerns were noted and recognized, and are very much a part of our ongoing, robust internal discussions this morning. 

Updated On: 12/10/18 at 11:47 AM

[haterobics]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:48am

The deleted thread thing is kind of crazy. Like, an entire previews thread for a currently running show no longer exists?! Hopefully they can take it offline, remove the stuff they don't like, and then put it back up. Otherwise, it seems like BWW is using a machete where a scalpel would suffice.

[\_(•_•)_/]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:52am

I may only troll on here and I can recongize that, but last night was a little insane. Threads from years ago, and I mean years ago (2016-2017) were deleted very quickly. ENTIRE threads. Not just a post.

While I understand, there are some things we can’t talk about. Attendance should be a thing we can discuss. But when a certain show’s preview threads and performance thread suddenly vanish. Thats a problem.

Hopefully you can speak on that a little more, as last nights “deletion run” turned off a lot of people.

[disneybroadwayfan22]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:55am

Pretty much this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0T_Rl05_c

[MauraLovesMusicals]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:56am

i literally had my friend change by bww password to something else so i could study for my exams and then something big goes down and i miss it.

[Moderator]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:57am

@haterobics, I don't disagree with you that the removal of an entire thread is not ideal, and something that we generally avoid. However, because of the posts that violated our rules were intermixed with the legitimate posts, those threads got to the point where the conversation would have been entirely fragmented if left with just what could be salvaged.

We’re working on improving how we deal with removed posts going forward and welcome any feedback you might have in terms of how to better deal with individual posts being removed. I can tell you, this has been a difficult 24 hours, but as always, we are trying to figure out the best way to address issues both on and offline. 

[Moderator]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 11:58am

Last night a number of old threads were bumped and spammed in regards to this issue. In the interest of keeping the boards from being spammed entirely into one topic on the front page we were forced to remove older discussions. We're working on system features to prevent this from happening in the future.

Thanks for your continued feedback.

~A

[\_(•_•)_/]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:01pm

That’s good. But I have one more question, like Greenestreet stated I’m not trying to be rude, just curious and please let me know if I’m out of line.

But my question is, if “spam” is an issue, why was I allowed to create troll posts mutiple times a day about let’s say an example would be the king and i closing and brendon urie joining kinky boots.

But one poster bumped the broadway censorship thread, and instead of deleting the post, you cleared the thread?

Not trying to be rude, but last night you basically cleared every thread that mentioned a certain perfomer.

[haterobics]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:08pm

MauraLovesMusicals said: "i literally had my friend change by bww password to something else so i could study for my exams and then something big goes down and i miss it."

I was online last night. Your exams were way more important.

[haterobics]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:17pm

Moderator said: "@haterobics, I don't disagree with you that the removal of an entire thread is not ideal, and something that we generally avoid. However, because of the posts that violated our rules were intermixed with the legitimate posts, those threads got to the point where the conversation would have been entirely fragmented if left with just what could be salvaged.

We’re working on improving how we deal with removed postsgoing forward and welcome anyfeedback you might have in terms of how to better deal with individual posts being removed. I can tell you, this has been a difficult 24 hours, but as always, we are trying to figure out the best way to address issues both on and offline."

I ran a community site for years and years, and it is a challenge. If someone creates a thread that seems only possible to steer down a useless path, then sure, I don't really care if that gets deleted.

But the previews/reviews threads seem like mainstays here. Of course, I always thought that the previews thread should auto-lock on opening night, and the last post in them should be a link to the reviews thread. Previews are over, lock it up, etc. So I think some of that sort of thread management would limit the amount of potential damage, as it limits the places people could blow things up needlessly.

If someone started posting nonsense in the admittedly silly "Who did you get stuff back from" thread, I think you still need to measure the history of that thread against the recent kerfuffle, and while there may be no historic value of knowing whether Patti LuPone sent stuff back during Women on the Verge, as a website, it gives you a long tail of SEO for people to end up here.

[Moderator]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:19pm

No, you aren't being rude \_(•_&bull_/ (and neither was Greenestreet). While I think there is a bit of a difference between spam and trolling, your point is valid. First, I'll speak to your personal point, for the posts like you made, we generally let them go at first to see if they are genuine, before deleting. 

However, to seemingly acceptable posts/threads being deleted last night, "spam" might not be the exact word that I would use, as it wasn't people trying to get you to contact them for computer help or anything. However, with the rash of posts all at once, it became spam-like in its totality. So, we made broad strokes to stop the offending conversation before it got out of hand last night. Some steps are things that we do on a daily basis, some were worst-case scenarios that we honestly wish we never had to do. But, to stem the tide we felt like they had to be done. 

Also, there have been some posts recently that we've deleted because they claim that one BWW staff member made unilateral decisions to delete posts/threads for personal reasons. Now, you can believe me or not, but I can guarantee you that that is no where near true. That staff member was one of a number of people involved in decisions last night, and any decisions made (especially larger ones) were arrived at by multiple people on BWW's admin team.

We take all of these things very seriously, as they have far reaching impacts, so we try to arrive at the best decision together. However, unfortunately, last night, because of how things spiraled out of control, there were not only no "best decisions," there likely weren't any good ones either. So, that is why today we are evaluating things on our end to improve the message board experience for everyone. 

Updated On: 12/10/18 at 12:19 PM

[GreeneStreet]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:20pm

I just find it kinda disheartening if I’m being honest. I may be new here, but we all spend so much time talking together. Every day we come on here checking to see news, hearing rumors etc.

Many of us have even made friendships, a lot of us don’t have people to talk about theatre with so we come here. This is our happy place.

It’s disheartening to see my fellow posters be muted and accounts be banned for just wanting to communicate. It’s disheartening to see suggestions for a new place to talk be deleted and threads cleared because of it.

At the end of the day, we are still a community and I would be very upset to lose these connections I have made here.

And thats why Im leaving the boards. Not because of a certain performer, and not because of the censorship but because I have found a better place with the people I care about to discuss theatre without my friends being muted.

Please do not delete this message.

Thank you.

[BroadwayBear2]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:22pm

It's also quiet, because many of the more vocal posters have had their accounts blocked/deleted including Sondheimite and BroadqayConcierge, and quite a few others. The whole thing got out of hand, I dont think removing these people we all loved and respected from our community was the answer. We need to be able to discuss things together

[haterobics]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:29pm

GreeneStreet said: "And thats why Im leaving the boards."

Again?

[Moderator]

Posted: 12/10/18 at 12:32pm

GreeneStreet, I can tell you that I first came to BWW years before I joined the team, specifically because of the message boards and that desire to communicate about the art form that we love, so I certainly sympathize. 

As we do when deemed necessary, some users have been suspended, but no posters have been banned indefinitely. Normally, we have a process that we go through before we suspend someone, but because of the rapid succession of offending posts last night, we amended that a bit. Also, for posters that have been suspended before (including some long-time ones), we go straight to suspension. 

Also, from some of the posts that we've seen this morning, it seems like some people think that they have a handle on everything that went down last night, but there is a lot more that happened that just being a part of the boards would not allow you to see. 

So, when we say that we are examining all internal options to make the board a more positive experience for everyone, we genuinely mean that. We welcome anyone who wants to be a part of figuring that out to do so, even if they currently are not able to post. As long as things are respectful and not attacking, you are welcome to voice concerns here, or to email contact [at] broadwayworld [dot ]com.