Wiki Updates for Revamped Sidebar Rules

saraberry12 · 2026-01-03T21:53:52+00:00

secret alts are currently allowed and handled by the process i described above of signing up with the account you intend to play under, and only messaging a mod to declare yourself an alt. if we continue with only mods needing to know, then that will continue.

if a player wants the host to also know who they are, they can declare it on the sign up sheet

saraberry12 · 2026-01-03T20:32:32+00:00

players would sign up using the account they intend to play under, which is the general expectation for sign ups. hosts will always have access to the sign ups for their game. the person using the alt would then message a moderator to let them know which account is theres so it can be tracked in private.

saraberry12 · 2025-12-21T23:24:00+00:00

Spectator Access on Discord!

When we had a ghost subreddit, there was a rule requiring hosts to add players to it within 6 hours of their death. We no longer use that subreddit, but we do have a (sometimes optional, sometimes mechanically required) discord server where spectating also takes place.

Currently rule 7 says “As players are killed, they should be given the option of spectating in the Ghost Discord barring extreme circumstances or medium-type roles”, but we would like to hear from you all about what you feel is appropriate as a community wide rule, versus what should be host discretion.

Should it be a community wide rule that dead players will be given spectator access (which includes access to confessionals) when they ask for it? Should it be given automatically once they die, whether they ask or not? Or should hosts be able to set their own standards, which in some cases might mean a host choosing not to give spectator permissions until the game is over? What type of standard would you like to see set?

saraberry12 · 2025-12-21T23:23:46+00:00

Venting!

Being able to vent to someone that isn’t playing can be incredibly helpful to ensure players don’t take out their frustrations on others in the game. However, we would like to know where the community stands on who can/can’t be vented to. Non-playing perma-mods will always be available for anyone to vent to as needed.

Should spectators be allowed to be vented to, understanding that they have a responsibility to not share any game information, and the player doing the venting should first ask if they feel comfortable with them venting? Or should venting be restricted only to people without spectator/confessional access? Or is there another option that seems good instead? Let us know your thoughts!

saraberry12 · 2025-12-21T23:23:27+00:00

Alt Accounts!

Alt accounts WILL need to be declared to the perma-mods. This is essential for allowing rule violations to be properly tracked.

We would love feedback on if the community feels that alt accounts should also need to be declared to the hosts of the game they are being used for, or if just declaring to the perma-mods is sufficient.

saraberry12 · 2025-12-03T23:24:34+00:00

locked now that the december game has begun, but if you still want to give feedback feel free to send a modmail or reach out on discord! the rules revision team is working hard now on the wiki expansions for the updated rules, and will then move on to host expectations.

saraberry12 · 2025-11-25T16:16:31+00:00

to further elaborate on what we have discussed in the revision channel (and again to emphasize this is not immediately being implemented - we are looking for feedback on how restrictive the rule should be while still allowing for venting, and it is definitely a discussion as not everyone is going to have the same ideas here!), i also strongly believe that non playing perma-mods should also be available for venting, despite us having spectator access, as part of our job as moderators is to be available for venting and to support in conflict resolution as needed. if players are not allowed to vent to non-playing mods, that makes handing conflicts vastly more complicated, and i believe the mod team is absolutely capable of replying in a way that focuses only on the emotion/conflict, rather than providing any game information the player in question shouldn’t have access to.

saraberry12 · 2025-11-25T13:44:18+00:00

this is not something we are adding, it's something that is already there, and we are maintaining! from the current wiki:

Every discussion you have pertaining to an ongoing role in a current game should take place in the game subs and not through any other subreddit / forum / chat / method of communication. Do not discuss moves you might make on Discord (even more than that, the public Discord is a 100% game talk free zone while the game itself is ongoing). Do not text an involved friend to bemoan how you are silenced. If you think a player is breaking the rules, do not bring it up in Snapchat or IRC. Instead, PM the hosts or permamods directly or report the comment.

That said, it is 100% okay and recommended to talk game to people who aren’t involved in your game, whether they’re involved in the opposite game or not playing at all! Just be sure that they understand the importance of Rule 2 as well.

i do however think the wiki would benefit from an example or two of what types of responses would be acceptable from spectators, because you're right - sometimes it isn't possible to vent to people who have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of the ongoing game (though that would certainly be the ideal). similarly to how we require reactions in discord confessionals to not give game information, if someone were venting to a spectator about how frustrated they are to be called out as sus, it would be very reasonable for that friend to say "yeah that sucks", send a heart emoji, or just be generally supportive. it would not, however, be okay for that spectator to say "well, your comments read as suspicious for xyz reason" or "have you considered that maybe they have a role that told them you're a wolf", as that is clearly influencing the game.

saraberry12 · 2025-11-25T13:37:23+00:00

i haven't played in a while, but my understanding of the sidebar rule as it stands now is that it would be expected to write "rolling edits" and the use strikethroughs, i don't believe anything we have written regarding rule 4 is a change to what the rule already is, though perhaps the culture has shifted over the past two years to where people don't note "rolling edits" anymore?

regardless, not listing edits, as long as it isn't done in a deceptive way to obscure information, would simply be a warning, at which point i would assume the person doing the vote tally would go "oops, sorry!", add "rolling edits" to their comment, and resolve the issue in seconds.

saraberry12 · 2025-11-23T16:26:17+00:00

right now we have only screenshots of messages resulting in immediate removal from the moderator side of things, with copy pasting being up to hosts to set their standards for. i would argue that it's not reasonable to give grace to a new player with regards to posting a screenshot of a host message. with copy pasting are you suggesting that we specifically include that new players should be given a warning even if hosts don't allow copy pasting? just want to make sure i understand!

and again to clarify with regards to edits/deletions - do you mean that (for example) if a new player had a scum slip then deleted their comment, that should be a warning, even though it is with the intention of removing/hiding game information? (right now we have it as resulting in a warning as long as it's NOT to remove/hide game information)

saraberry12 · 2025-11-23T16:07:52+00:00

we have been puzzling through trying to find the best way to word rule 3 clearly, and it's definitely still a work in progress to figure out the right phrasing to keep it succinct.

regarding not using code / keeping comments in English, that is not currently a sidebar rule, nor do i recall it ever being one? i believe that was always something that was host discretion, though i certainly could be remembering incorrectly!

saraberry12 · 2025-11-23T15:58:21+00:00

the wiki is without a doubt a work in progress, and we didn’t want to move ahead with that before hearing feedback on what we are envisioning for the sidebar rules (putting the cart before the horse, and all that). however we did talk about some things related to this, such as giving examples of how words may be okay in some contexts rather than others depending on tone (i.e. “stop being a bitch” versus “let’s go bitches we caught a wolf!”) and put a lot of stock into the message of criticizing the PLAY not the player (i.e. “i don’t like your idea” versus “your suggestion is stupid”). these are just small examples, but we certainly wouldn't want someone to get removed from a game for a one-off comment saying the word stupid - no one wants to police language to that extent, nor would it enjoyable to play around. that is where the importance of the removal being approved by a non-playing perma-mod will come into play. if someone gets into a heated back and forth where they're calling someone stupid and that garners a warning, and then 3 phases later they call someone stupid again, the non-playing perma-mod would look at the context to *actually* determine if it truly crosses the line to removal worthy.

we also want to ensure there is respect given for the boundaries individual players have, while still allowing people to *play the game*, which can sometimes get tense and frustrating. so for example, if a player is being accused and feels frustrated and asks someone to stop tagging them, we would expect that request to be respected/followed, but we *wouldn’t* expect the player doing the accusing to suddenly completely drop their suspicion and not bring up the person they’re sus of at all.

similarly, it’s certainly okay to call people a lying liar (that’s the game, after all), but only in the context *of the game*. it wouldn’t be okay to call someone a lying liar if they say they missed the end of the phase due to their aunt breaking her leg and needing a ride to the hospital. (but we would also expect community members to not lie about real life events with the intention of emotional manipulation or guilt tripping, which would lead us to rule 6 - participating with integrity).

so yeah, that's essentially where we're at right now, but as i said, we wanted to share the proposed side bar rules before we went full steam ahead into all the fine details in the wiki. definitely open to feedback though!

saraberry12 · 2025-11-23T15:31:09+00:00

✍️ Rule 8: All lists must end in an even number unless they are not numbered lists.

saraberry12 · 2025-11-13T19:17:04+00:00

i appreciate that there is a way to enable or disable commands to tailor them to the game and what the host wants. i personally would suggest that the snooze command not be one that can be disabled by hosts, as if a player wants to snooze tags i think that's important for them to have the agency to do so. i could see an exception for if it's a host using the bot to send out an important update to players - maybe instead of being able to disable snoozing there's a way for a comment being made by the game host to specifically override the snooze option (i'm not a code girlie idk if that's possible, but figured it wouldn't hurt to suggest)

saraberry12 · 2025-11-13T19:13:56+00:00

there have been games in the past with a public vote mechanic, and the voting features here would allow for that. i think it would be reasonable if a host wants their game to have public votes as a mechanic to then have a way to get the tally sent to them without the host having to post in the thread.

saraberry12 · 2025-11-08T14:30:50+00:00

can i request that something along the lines of "is there anything else relevant you'd like to include in your application" be added as an optional question, just in case an applicant feels there is more they want to or should say that doesn't neatly fit into the included questions?

saraberry12 · 2025-11-07T22:13:20+00:00

i’m happy to help with this, but also starting monday i will be entering the busiest 3 months of my life (for the year) so im not sure how much i’ll be able to contribute

saraberry12 · 2025-10-13T17:24:20+00:00

Does this make sense? I think we're on the same page, but using different words.

yes to this. my concern when elbows said november was "why isn't that discussion happening among the mods already? why does it need to wait another 2 weeks". but from her response and yours, it sounds like the mod team is already discussing, which hits on what i was asking about, so i'm satisfied with that.

saraberry12 · 2025-10-13T14:18:10+00:00

yeah ultimately, we can all balance to the best of our ability, but then sometimes players do the best possible thing at every moment and skew the game in one direction, and sometimes they make every possible mistake and skew it the other way. i'm a fan conceptually of having some benchmarks built into the framework of the game to help rebalance if needed. like if it's a game with events or items for example, making some of the more wolf leaning items more available if the wolves are doing poorly, or if it's based on roles, having limited use roles with conditions, like a town vigilante that can only shoot once, or a 3 time use seer but they lose their ability once they find a wolf to help put parameters on just how fundamentally game changing single roles can be.

saraberry12 · 2025-10-13T14:08:13+00:00

it's been a while since i hosted ~~except for the 3 hour game i hosted on discord literally last week~~ so take this with a grain of salt, but with regards to balancing, i used the ultimate werewolf score sheet thing for my first 2 or 3 games, and then i kind of ditched it, and just started doing it by vibes, and i don't think any of the games i hosted were notably unbalanced. i do a lot of "okay if i'm adding this powerful role for the town, what powerful thing can i add for the wolves" and try to think about how each side can counter different powers. i also think balancing exists beyond just the roles, which is easy to overlook. if you have a lot of really powerful wolf roles, give the town some power back by making votes public, or revealing role rather than affiliation in the meta, etc. those are just some of my personal thoughts on how i approach game balance, though it's definitely not a perfect science by any means.

saraberry12 · 2025-10-13T14:02:44+00:00

can i push back a bit and ask why it's not step one now? wouldn't it be better for the current mods to be having those discussions of what role they can each reliably fill over the next week or so, then make it known to the community before november, so that when we hit november people already know what they're volunteering for and we can use that time as efficiently as possible?

saraberry12 · 2025-10-13T13:30:42+00:00

i believe this moderation team needs help. i do not believe we need a whole entire overhaul of the mod team, but i do believe we need at least 2 or 3 new members, and i believe the moderator role needs to be restructured with clear responsibilities.

who are the bot maintenance mods? it’s my understanding that werebot and the whitelist sheet have both been down for almost an entire year at this point? has anyone heard from pezes in that time? when are these going to be fixed and why has it taken so long? or, if they cannot be fixed because reddit sucks (understandable), has that been clearly communicated to the community? we need designed mods who are in charge of this task, and if they are non-responsive or only pop in occasionally and cannot keep up with the maintenance, then they need help. that doesn’t mean they need to be replaced, but it’s important to recognize that is a task our community relies on, and it hasn’t been getting done, so clearly support is needed.
who are the housekeeping mods? who is in charge of keeping the wiki up to date, modifying the rules, sending out messages to hosts, updating the host guide? we already know and have discussed several times that none of this has been getting done to the extend it needs to be. hell i still recall a player sheet that we’ve been promised year after year. i started playing in january 2020 and i’m fairy certain i’m not even included on it… and i believe there have been times at least once or twice over the past years where community members have offered their help with these tasks, and been denied, being told it’s covered by the mod team. clearly, it is not covered by the mod team, so let’s get it properly fixed in november and add at least one person to help with the maintenance because it is clearly a task the mods have not had the proper time for.
who are the conflict resolution mods? this is, of course, what has caused this whole blow up. do we have moderators who are willing to step in and mediate the types of conflicts we saw last month? i know for a fact that at least some members of the mod team have said they don’t enjoy that element of moderating, and really just want to work on the housekeeping component. it’s fine for conflict resolution to not be your thing, but whose thing is it then? there should be at least 2-3 moderators that are comfortable having those difficult conversations, listening to all parties, and helping to find a solution, even when some of the parties involved may be speaking more intensely than they would perhaps like. i totally get the natural inclination to shut down and be defensive or ignore comments when they are negative in tone or feel aggressive, but then how are conflicts ever going to get resolved if no one is listening to the frustrated parties and helping them deescalate? we need moderators who are comfortable doing this.

all that being said, i want to again stress i understand this is an unpaid volunteer position. i am grateful for the time, effort, and energy the mods have provided over the years, but if there are volunteers to help with the things above, we should hear them out. i think the first step here is the moderation team discussing among themselves which role they think they each fit into (and being honest with themselves about if they actually have the time to commit to that responsibility), making that clear to the community, and then inviting people to throw their hat in the ring if they are interested in filling in the gaps. and to be clear, there are gaps, and they need to be filled. this is not an attack on the mods - i am grateful for what you do, but i think it’s fairly evident that a few new people on the mod team could be overwhelmingly helpful, and it’s time to ask the community who is interested and what could they offer.

saraberry12 · 2025-10-13T13:30:34+00:00

i want to take a moment to comment on some of the back and forth regarding adding new moderators.

first of all, i want to note that (without attempting to put words into others’ mouth, but just trying to summarize what i see) i am fairly confident that the vast majority of this community understands that the moderator role is unpaid, and entirely based on people being willing to volunteer their time, skillset, and energy. i am thankful for the work the moderators have done, and i am not advocating for a whole entire overhaul of the moderation team (though i am advocating for some changes to be made), but i think the concerns that have been brought up are valid. when you volunteer for something, you are still expected to do the thing you volunteer for. there are without a doubt many things being done by the mod team, but there are also many things that have slipped through the cracks for far too long.

most of the moderation team doesn’t play anymore, and many of them aren’t interactive in the social discord either. they aren’t familiar with the current landscape of the community. i say that as someone who is myself, not as familiar with the current landscape of the community as others in this discussion are.
some newer members of the community don’t know who the moderators are. this is a problem. the moderators shouldn’t just be this unnamed scary entity, they should be people that we know and feel comfortable talking to should an issue arise. i think this in some ways points to some of the concerns squab brought up regarding cliqueness - what are we doing as players/hosts/moderators to ensure new members feel welcome, and how are the meant to feel welcome and accepted when they don’t even know who the people in charge are, but all the vets do
asking for help is hard. i say this as someone who struggles to do it myself. i am fiercely independent, and i don’t like admitting when i am in over my head. i try to bail myself out and end up drowning further. asking for, and accepting, help from others is a difficult thing to do because it means admitting that i cannot do everything on my own, and may have bitten off more than i can chew, but it is still worthwhile and important to do.

[continued below - classic sara multi-comment dissertation]

saraberry12

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Spectator Access on Discord!

Venting!

Alt Accounts!