Response

Hello P&W!

In this post we’ll be going over the form from the summer. Thank you all for the . The mods have discussed what will be implemented according to the responses that we’ve received.

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General

Recommended improvements/things to improve:

- are redirected immediately/No off topic chats allowed at all.

-Cannot talk as freely about all of your practices.

-The toxicity towards hard Polytheists

-Needs less chats/too many chats looses a feeling of community

-Chat directory

-“cultural advisory board” actually promotes racism, gatekeeping, and prejudice rather than inclusivity.

-Promote the community more/partner with witchy creators

-Too strict

response

1. Chats. The reason that hosts may immediately redirect or stop off topic chats is because chats must have on topic discussions to count as activity. Chat hosts are penalized for too much off topic discussion. In of there being too many chats. is currently discussing this problem and will be talking with the chat hosts for a solution. The chat directory may be a thing that is considering depending on the time that has. It will not happen any time soon especially with discussions on changing up chats as a whole currently in discussion.

2. Cultural/toxicity. is working to make this community as open as possible. If there is any toxicity found regarding hard polytheists or your practice, please report it to the so that we can actually help out. We cannot do anything to help if we are not aware of the problem at the time it happens. In regards to the Cultural Advisory Board, it is in place to help understand *closed practices* and any practices that we don’t have the most information on. It is not meant to allow gatekeeping. It’s to help make decisions.

3. Promote more. Past have made the decision to shut down the P&W socials. may consider bringing the socials back but at the moment, we do not have the time to be keeping up with any other socials or platforms other then the ones we currently have in place. We may try and reach out to witchy/pagan creators in the future if an opportunity arises to do so.

4. Too strict. With no specific context on what exactly is strict about the community, we cannot provide a decent response. The guidelines and rules that are in place are there to help protect everyone and avoid cultural appropriation within the community. Some of the guidelines are also TA’s guidelines and cannot be changed as we have to abide by those rules as well.

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Featured Feed

Member suggestions:

-Feature newer posts/stop featuring old posts

-Needs more informational posts

-More of a selection of different types of posts

-More universal hashtags

Response

1. Feature newer posts. We try! Unfortunately we need to post feature-worthy posts, like those informational posts or OWC blogs. We’ve seen the same posting those long, feature-worthy posts so it’s hard to give spotlight to other . In order to keep the featured page full, we do sometimes have to go back to those older posts. We can encourage activity all we want, but we cannot force to post blogs just to fill our featured page.

2. Needs more of a selection. Once again, does try to feature a wide range of posts. We would love to be able to feature more informational posts or art blogs, but we are limited if we want to focus on the newer blogs.

3. Universal hashtags. can certainly discuss creating some universal hashtags, however we do have the navigation bar on the menu that allows to organize their posts into different topics so we highly recommend checking there. Even if we do implement these hashtags, we cannot force everyone to use them so whether or not they are actually used is up to the community.

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OWC

When looking at the OWC , it seems like people like them most of the time. However it does seem like there are some people who believe that the OWC doesn’t relate to them because of their new status. The team will certainly work on making the OWCs more inclusive.

Some member suggestions:

-Switching up the formats

-Revisit older OWC topics

-Polls for community interests

-Broader topics

-Area specific

-Longer time periods

-Collab challenges

-OWC community committee

Response

1. Switching up the formats. If you hadn’t noticed already, but has started implementing new OWC formats! We want to try and move away from the blog focused OWC topics when we have the chance and try and promote activity within the community or push to research. There are only so many different OWC formats that we can do, so the format will likely stay the same for the most part. However, please understand that is trying to figure out different formats.

2. Revisit old topics/collab challenges. That will certainly be brought up! With the struggle of thinking of new topics, will likely bring back some of the old OWCs topics. As for the collab challenges, this will be something to consider. However, whether or not brings it back will depend on the availability. Some of us do have school and work and may not have the time to help run a collaborative OWC.

3. Polls for community interest. For this, will likely not implement this idea. If you have any ideas for the OWCs we do have this Suggestions form. Polls may not be implemented, but does look for community interests by asking for OWC topics.

4. Broader topics/area specific. does try to keep topics broad or make an OWC for every branch of witchcraft and paganism. The reason the OWCs are more specific is so that each branch can get the spotlight every now and then. We try to keep them as broad and specific as possible. As for the area specific OWC idea, is limited on what OWC ideas can be implemented for that as it could fall into dangerous territory. We don’t want to encourage to reveal where they live through an OWC.

5. Longer time periods. This is another thing that has already implemented! Rather then the biweekly challenges, has extended the time limit to a month. This has made it easier for and we hope it has made it easier for you all as well since you have more time to create an OWC entry.

6. Committee. As much as we would love to include the community when creating OWC and picking top picks, we are limited in how far we can take that. The biggest concern that has is that there would be low interest and not enough applications to successfully build a committee. For the top picks, we can certainly include the community more with the new formats. But in of making the OWCs, the most we can do at the moment is take the suggestions from the community in the form above.

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Guidelines

Unfair guidelines:

-Cultural appropriation vs appreciation.

-Discussions of cannabis

-Age-restricted/multiple topic chats

-divinekin/otherspousing/shards

-Stating what the deity rules over

-5 sentences is a little unfair

-Humanizing deities

Response:

1. Cultural posts. For appreciation vs appropriation, can certainly discuss creating a post to help clarify any confusions on what is allowed and what isn’t. We’d like to believe that the community is already pretty open minded about things, as long as it doesn’t jump into appropriating closed practices.

2. TA guidelines. Discussions of cannabis are not allowed becuase of TA’s rules. This app is a 13+ app so we must abide by TA’s guidelines. There is also the fact that cannabis is not legal in every place so the discussion of it could lead to problems for the app. can discuss letting more of a conversation about it, but we cannot stop TA from taking down your post. This is the same for the discussion of what a deity rules over. Things like l*st and s*x (censored just in case), we are willing to let those be mentioned in posts. Naked statues and images are allowed within the community, *however* they are against TA’s guidelines so we cannot do anything if TA decides to take down a post with these images or mentions included.

3. Chats. Age-restricted chats are no longer a thing within the community because of the risk of a minor ing the chat. We cannot implement any sort of check to make sure that everyone is the age they say they are. This would also required a lot more moderation. As mentioned above, there are TA guidelines that we have to abide by as well. In of multi-topic chats, this is technically allowed in the sense that you are allowed to make chats for general practices or a specific group of deities. may discuss the implementation of allowing more multi-topic chats.

4. 5 sentences. is not willing to decrease the amount of sentences required for blogs and wikis. We are already fairly lenient with the sentences where as long as a post looks like it might be 5 sentences then it’s okay. The sentences also do not have to be super long.

5. Humanizing deities. The humanizing deities guideline is always a bit open to interpretation. There is a difference between understanding a deity through a human lens and claiming that they watched Mean Girls with you. Any “physical” interactions must be stated that it was done in the astral realm, however talking about a deity through a slightly human lens is okay if that’s how you understand things. We just wish to avoid having state that “x deity hugged me today” or “x deity thought that the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was amazing and wants to watch it with me again”.

6. Divinekin/shards/otherspousing. Otherspousing would fall under the godspousing rules. It is allowed however there are restrictions that are in place. In of divinekin, that is another practice that is allowed in some situations. There are restrictions on both but they are allowed. Divinekin is allowed as long as its in the sense of a reincarnated soul. Otherkin, demonkin, and angelkin are acceptable topics within the community. Demonkin and angelkin is only allowed if they are an unnamed/worshiped demon or angel. In of shards, simply does not have enough information on the topic to make a decision.

Guidelines to be added:

-no longer allowing Starseeds

-godspousing should be literally out of guidelines and removed.

-No gatekeepers

-No make believe

1. No gatekeepers/no make believe. Unfortunately these responses did not include enough context for to really discuss. We do have rules against “make believe” already in of “No roleplaying” so we’re unsure exactly what is being suggested here.

-Starseeds. has been trying to moderate this topic to the best of our ability. We will certainly discuss the topic more but at the moment we simply do not have enough knowledge of the topic to make a solid decision. If you have concerns about starseeds and wish to discuss it more in depth, please reach out to a member of .

-Godspousing. Does already have quite a few restrictions on what is allowed and what isn’t allowed. For that reason, will be keeping the Godspousing guidelines as they are.

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Notes and recommendations from :

-Bring back Townhall

-Don’t lie

-Needs better communication

-Be more open minded

-Try not to be misinformed

Response

1. Bring back Townhall. is considering bringing back the Townhall. However, as mentioned above with the collaborative OWC idea, it will depend entirely on availability.

2. Don’t lie/don’t just take down posts. does not lie about anything relating to mod actions. We cannot share what mod actions we take with other and will state as such. We do not take any mod actions that are unnecessary and do not ban just for fun. All mod actions do have a reason and are communicated with the member in question.

3. Need better communication. does try to communicate as soon as we can. We do all have lives outside of amino and can get caught up in things so we apologize if we can be a bit slow with responding. We would love to be able to add more to our team so that it may be a bit easier to get in with someone, however we need to apply to become . However at the moment we ask for patience from the of the community as we cannot be online or available all the time.

4. Be more open minded/try not to be misinformed. We have a diverse team of but even then it does not cover every topic or branch of witchcraft/paganism. We try to be as informed as possible and go to our Cultural Advisory Board for help with topics that is not educated on. We certainly try with every topic but we are human too, we ask that respect that. is certainly trying to be open minded and discuss when we are wrong in our decisions. We make decisions based on the information we have at the time so if there’s anything wrong, please let us know.

5. Positive notes. Thank you all for the compliments! We’re so grateful for all the kind words from the . We do try our best to make this community the best that it can be.

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Discord

-Lack of activity

-Too many chats

-Too confusing/not enough like amino

Response

This will be a general response to everything instead of broken down like the other sections. The Discord is new, yes, and there is a lack of activity because the amino is still alive. is currently discussing ideas for the Discord server to make it a bit more friendly. Please keep in mind that discord will never be able to live up to the beauty of amino’s set up. We will do what we can to boost activity, but while we can have people , we cannot force them to actually be active.

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Other Suggestions

-festival event with a special chat

-Can we put in a request to organize our saved posts?

-Maybe a blog post specifically about curator applications every once in awhile could be good, specifically when a retires/more help is needed

Response

1. Festival event. can certainly keep this in mind! In regards to the recommendation of having volunteers to help run the events, we would need member interest and need to have apply to be volunteers. If wishes to go through with this suggestion, we will be putting out an interest poll first and if interest is low then it may not progress.

2. Request. So does not have direct access to TA, in fact no one really does. If you would like to submit a request for anything that is app related you can put in a request here. However, unfortunately cannot do anything about this.

3. Curator blog. We do have a blog for curator trials! does feature it every once and a while so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested in applying to be a curator! You can find the blog here!