I initially agree with what Avi is suggesting here but I also see a number of points that I would like to directly respond to. I might just be misunderstanding, but I'd like to know what the full idea behind certain points is.
I would prefer my announcement not be flooded with people's emojis from their own server
I was surprised to see that nobody has mentioned this before but discord actually has a maximum amount of reactions that one can add to messages, and this amount is 20. I don't know what your personal definition of "flooding" is, but depending on how wide your screen is, this could actually fit in a single line underneath the actual announcement. I personally don't think 20 is an amount that can be seen as "flooded with emojis".
It really just feels like an unnecessary change that would have little-to-no benefits with a lot of downsides. My point still stands about us wanting announcements to have a clean appearance, but it's also the fact that this would add another thing that we need to moderate. How it is now, with the person making the announcement deciding on the emojis people can react with, makes the most sense. Those emojis mostly are relevant to the announcement.
First of all, I was a tad disappointed to see this message (which was a direct response to what Tall said) not really touch on "but what if certain people are given the perms to moderate this".
You mention this being "an unnecessary change that would have little-to-no benefits with a lot of downsides". Just checking, correct me if I'm wrong, but so far this is what I've read in this thread alone:
Benefits:
- Community involvement
- Solidifying the community that is currently drifting apart
- The community would take joy in this
Downsides:
- Difficult to moderate
- Unclean appearance is deemed unprofessional
This is just quoting the things that have been said so far. And again, if I've missed something, please let me know, but so far within this thread alone I do not see more downsides than benefits so I think it's not very justified to say that there are a lot of downsides without mentioning more of the downsides, or saying there are little-to-no benefits when so far, the benefits are more in number than the downsides.
How I see it is as follows: Whenever an announcement is posted, if people are able to freely react with their own emojis, there only needs to be 1 person available in the few minutes after the announcement is posted to remove any inappropriate emojis: 20 at the most. This would take a few minutes at most and then the emoji slots would already be full, so there doesn't need to be any more moderation as it would be physically impossible to add more reactions. Again, if I'm wrong, please correct my logic but personally I don't really see why moderation is being made such a great deal when it's only a few minutes of extra work for 1 person.
Though this would be fun, we need to look at the professionalism side to the server. The announcements made on those channels are designed to look professional and easy to access as possible. With multiple reaction emojis in place, the professional aspect would go down almost entirely.
Furthermore, I have to be honest with you Cate, this is a Harry Potter Minecraft Server.
If you're worrying about professionalism on a minecraft harry potter server, I think there are much more important things to be worrying about than reactions on a discord server.
Furthermore, I think sometimes one needs to sacrifise part of their professionality in order for them to be truly professional. If staff members were completely professional, they would be distanced completely from the playerbase and the only interaction that would occur, would be warnings or help, in the most monotone of ways. But this is not the case, staff members enjoy communicating with the playerbase as well beyond those responsibilities, which gives room for a better relationship between staff team and playerbase. And that is, in my opinion, a far more professional way of operating than what I just described.
In a similar fashion I think allowing the playerbase more freedom when it comes to reactions would actually be somewhat more professional. The community gets more freedom and thus more room to get authentic experiences from the server. But again, that's just how I see this notion right now, I am open to hearing more of the downsides of this idea.