I found it annoying,  and distracting, and more likely to attract the attention of Websense.  But all those items didn't cause me to make this post.

It has up till this point to be the policy of most DDM fansites to encourage the posting of legal spoilers (i.e. the Warden in the Woods from a package of War Drums, the War Drums stats from a legally obtained copy of Scry), but to prohibit the publication of illegally gained spoilers (i.e. the greenback's).

While people are divided about this policy, I support it strongly.  Why?  because if we encourage illegal spoilers, we are unlikely to have the support of WotC moving forward.  Keep in mind that other fan sites (a Magic site) have been sued, and shut down for publishers spoilers.  Do we want MaxMinis or Hordelings to be shut down?  I think we are all in general agreement here.

Additionally, we get all kinds of support from WotC.  StriderlotR and I received very helpful info from Ian Richards, and Allan at Pasttimes (the sub to WotC at GenCon managing DDM League play, and tournies...) for WF and Gen Con.  Ian tossed us a Huge Black Dragon, and Drizz't Promo cards as prizes, Ian runs contests to guess the next 3 Epic cards, Shoe drops hints left and right, Lidda neither confirms nor denies such hints, etc. etc.

The current policies of both sites should preserve this fun relationship with WotC.  However, I'm a bit distressed by what I witnessed this morning in the Chat window.  Hosting the stats is not different that hosting a link to the stats, which is essentially what the Chat window became.  People are giving directions, and solicting E-mails to provide the spoiler information to people in Chat.  That is "not cool".

 I think that Chat needs to be shut down for the protection of the site...

ymmv

Pat E

[QUOTE]Gnolaum wrote
(2) it cuts down on the number of posts
(3) this is a message board, there are already various chat programs.
[/QUOTE]

Agree totally with those two points. I wish chat would go away.

 I think that Chat needs to be shut down for the protection of the site...

[/QUOTE]

I think you're jumping the gun here.  This is something that could happen on the #maxminis IRC channel (and probably did several times in the past 3 years).  Unlike IRC, however, the chat here is part of the maxminis database, and every message is stored like in the forums.  I was thinking that chat could have a mod (sir bozak seems to be perfect given the amount of time he spends on it) that could review the chat logs and take any action necessary.  Additionally, I was thinking of putting a page up with a page-able view of the chat logs.  Right now I'd like to straighten out the forum deficiencies first.  If you want to help speed up the process of dealing with this infraction, tell me the time and who said what and why its so bad and send it to maxminis_webmaster@yahoo.com

Thanks!

I share Pat's concerns.  If we intend to continue the policy of controling spoilers, the chat window is a significant barrier to this.  Earlier today many of the the spoiled figures, details of their skirmish stats and details on how to see the whole spoiler were shared on the chat window. 

The other option is to lighten up the policing of spoilers in the future, but that may significantly change our relationship with folks at WotC like Lidda and Shoe AND open the site up to litigation as happened for Magic fan sites. 

The previous policy was set by Merric and Chris.  With both of them stepping down as moderators, this is something the webmaster will have to make a call on (or delegate the decision to a new head moderator or group of moderators).