We as forum users didn’t sign a CONTRACT about how we can talk about Blizzard or their products. It applies to the DISCORD COMMUNITY program. If you can’'t see the difference, then I feel sorry.
Edit: Sorry if I sound passive aggressive, but it is about a legal contract the discord owners would have to sign, not about what we are allowed or not allowed to say on the forums.
There is difference between moderation and cenzorship under threat od getting your account banned so you loose all your chars etc.
This is the latter with sentinel program as big brother who cenzorships
Problem is of course with what is in this contract. It is what makes everyone sceptical. Heck, even if it is a normalised contract, it is bad. No-one is going up to arms about what we could guess is the well mening intent of the project - all we see it the void that is the words written to be legally binding.
It makes people no longer trust that community, as they are enforced by contract not to speak ill of anything blizzard related - or that of any of its orbiters.
So… we presume a lot. Bad presumptions are not a bad thing to have, especially with a company like blizzard. Trust lost can not be easily regained.
So no, it is not positive as a whole, as the whole thing got a rotten core (that is the contract). The communities are already moderated and got its own rules. They do not need blizzard to enforce their all-mighty will in the name of brand-positivity.
They clearly took the wrong approach here. An u-turn is needed and they should go for a more moderate direction to get to the goal of this project. Or at least reword the contract and make it 100% clear that their intent and actions are meant well.
A happy and more inter-knitt community feel between the players and devs is the goal. At least, if you don’t read the contract. If you do - censorship is.
There is no difference between us discussing something we do or don’t like, on the forums or on a discord. We sign agree to Blizzards Terms and Conditions when we have buy/sign up for the game and there are rules for the forums same as in game. Blizzard isn’t just going to partner up with a toxic cesspool community that doesn’t meet the standards they want to have associated with their product.
They aren’t contracting the members of those discords only the owner of the server. However each discord has it’s own set of rules and discord itself has standards that have to be maintained or you can be reported and actioned by discord themselves.
You don’t sound passive aggressive, I think there is a lot of misinformation floating around atm. Part of the issue is that the contract is written in legal terms. People are presuming that they are going to be under some draconian rule.
It’s not something I’d ever want to do for my own discord (not that it’s solely wow orientated), nor do I meet the standards they have set, we have an NSFW channel that would rule us out instantly 
they shouldn’t force any legal stuff other than NDA to their players, it explicitly says that it’s not an employment yet the legal stuff is almost the same as an employee. that’s where they’re wrong. it should’ve been either an employee they hire from community or just an NDA to prevent them from leaking anything from the possible rewards like beta testing.
I totally understand the scepticism. I think it’s hard to understand the contract. For most people it’s like
It is voluntary though, no one is forced to take part of this initiative. Not everyone relishes inviting Blizz into their communities. It’s a personal choice, or a choice people have to weigh up for their own community.
We are subject to a licence agreement that the bulk of people don’t even read.
Many of us just click ‘I agree’
Every game is the same, and various other things we sign up to. There is a huge wall of text of terms and conditions that we agree to or they can terminate etc.
The difference is the content of the contract.
As an example: In my terms and conditions that I agreed to to play this game and use the forums, there is no note that I am NOT allowed to say anything bad about Blizzard or their products or they will sue me, even after I stop playing WoW. The contract for the discord community program contains such a passage.
I get the NSFW stuff, my discord doesn’t have a NSFW channel, because: The game is for minors as well and imho we don’t need such a channel.
Someone a few posts earlier already stated: We are mostly people who run discords in our free time as our hobby. If they’d sue us for a bad comment, we’d be sued as private persons, in case of a punishment, we’d pay with our private money. Where is the appeal in that?
I’m one of the admins that run a community with over 100k members. And below is my experience of how this has played out so far. Also contains opinions that are my own and not necessarily representative of others.
Saw the announcement. Thought, oh, great. This is an opportunity for more communication and transparency. Something that we have over the years always had a lack of.
So I post this to other staff of our community and tell them that I will read through the agreement since I have some experience through work.
My first read through of it made me feel rather uncomfortable. It is very one-sided, would make me personally liable for several things. And also contains parts that wouldn’t be enforceable in EU. Not to mention that the Discord extension in the agreement is described very differently from the announcement.
I start messaging other community leaders to get their opinions. Many are pretty lost in the legalese of the agreement and confused.
We have several lawyers give their input, both US and EU based. And create something that is more easy to read. Pointing out red flags. Pointing out what is “boilerplate” etc. Three separate entities have urged us to decline this agreement.
After discussing this. Nobody in our group of communities that together have way above 1 million members and have spent almost two decades worth of volunteering for the game we love. Nobody wishes to go through with this initiative.
We’ve asked our contacts that we have at Blizzard, without any ability to clarify what this entails. We’ve had no clarification here either nor in any other media.
None of our staff in any community has been contacted beforehand. And the program seems to have had no other pilot communities before it started from scratch.
Does this really feel like the way something like this should’ve been done? Should there even be a need of presuming/interpreting an agreement aimed towards volunteers?
You are making the “You don’t have to” as an argument. You are not inviting blizzard to join your community, you invite them to take over your community.
If you haven’t read the contract - or the read up people’s reaction to the contract, you would perhaps be willing to think there is a way to see it as positive. Yet there is nothing in that contract that is good for anyone but the company Blizzard.
Don’t try to trick anyone to signing this contract. It is not worth it for the big-boys, and it surely isn’t worth it for the smaller ones.
It is a personal choice. It is my personal opinion that anyone should avoid this and take your words with a grain of salt. You seem fanatical pro blizzard, as if you haven’t read the contract itself.
They aren’t going to sue anyone. If a discord doesn’t meet the standards they’ve expected and the owner has signed up to they will simply cut ties with that discord.
The contract does not say you can’t criticise blizzard, their games or their decisions.
The claims seem to be getting wilder.
yes i click because i know what a usual TOS agreement involves this is not the same thing like i said if it was an NDA it would be ok also i know that anything blizzard gives me to sign has been checked by players. this initiative has just died because of this agreement , waste of a great idea.
I’m not using the ‘you don’t have to’ as an argument. It wasn’t an argument. I was simply this is a voluntary arrangement.
I’m more put out by discords decision to get rid of numbers from our user names and make them unique. That is not voluntary and is going to be a pain.
I don’t see how anyone is being tricked. All the information is available up front. They are not tricking anyone.
Oh? You guarantee that?
Did you READ the 16 pages of the legal contract?
I have no idea what the interest is for this initiative. I’ve not seen any statistics on take up, nor do I think they are available yet.
The contract does not state anywhere you will be sued.
Did you read it?
you have an idea you just ignore it, people who own or moderate some of the big communities told u that they’re gonna pass on it so it means that this initiative has 0 positive results for now.
Yes, not the most fun read I’ve had
I have no idea because they are in the process of taking sign ups, nothing has been published.
The initiative may be a roaring success or it may fail. It’s too early to tell at this point.