Changes on DSS

Hey everyone!

Recently there has been a little misunderstanding about some of changes that have been made on the forum. As such, we wanted to take the opportunity to go through them again. We hope this will clear up some issues and, also give you a better understanding into why we thought they were a good idea.

So without any further ado....

1) New members
All new registered members of DSS have to post first in the "Introduce Yourself" forum. After this initial post they can post in any of our forums.

We did this so everyone gets to know each other better. We felt it helps build a closer community. Maybe you'll meet someone who has the same taste of music as you. Or maybe it's someone who lives in your hometown.

We're not asking for people to share much.  Even if it's only how you discovered the band. What ever you're comfortable with.

So please feel free to welcome the new members here at DSS. It surely makes everyone instantly feel as a part of our community.


2) The DSS Lounge

We created this subforum recently to provide, and store, exclusive DSS content.

We are always trying to think of cool and new ideas for the members of our community. (e.g. Q&As, chats, raffles, competitons etc.) And all of these are stored in the DSS Lounge.

While the raffles and competitions are accessible to anyone, the other two subforums are only open to active members here on DSS.

We did this for a few reasons:

One, because a lot of these exclusives are only possible with the help of you guys; our active community members. We are very thankful to all of you for that. You help make the forum what it is. So we try to give back by putting together these opportunities.

Two, as an encouragement to get more people to join our awesome community and be active in it.

Most of our content, like the day to day information, album news, tour, ticket exchange, and even the bootleg section, is available for everyone to see. Believe us, we are thrilled that people come from all over to find information through DSS. But, it also felt like there wasn't enough of an incentive for anyone to join and participate.

DSS is a community and, as a community, we are only as strong as our members. The up-to-date news, information, and exclusives are only possible because of you. The countless hours you have spent over the years to fill DSS with content, is what gave the forum the reputation as the place to be for "...consistent and up to the minute stuff..." Without that dedication, we'd be just another fan site"

Therefore we want to encourage you to interact on the forum. Share news, share your stories, review the gig you went to, reply to such posts and keep the conversations going. Our community can only exist if the majority of the people give and take. If people are only taking, the community suffers.

With all of that in mind. If you remember when the lounge was first set up we, the admins, manually chose who could gain access. It never felt right to us, to do that. So we switched the system.

Currently we solve it with a post count of 100 posts. After 100 posts you are automatically added to the DSS lounge area. We felt this way the only fair way to have all of our members on a level field. As the system is not flexible enough to include new, active members we have decided to make certain exceptions. If a chat or Q&A is coming up really soon, you can bypass the 100 post rule by participating. In other words, submit a question, a REAL question not “why is the sky blue?”, then contact an admin (steadynowsteady, debonair, StitchesOnTheRadio or enola) who will add you manually so you can see the end result.

If you have reached 100 posts and can't see the lounge, please message one of us. We'll happily fix the error. Sometimes technology is screwy.

So we hope you can keep in mind that even though this part of the forum may not be accessible to everyone, the rest of the forum is. (the day to day information, album news, tour, ticket exchange, bootleg section etc.)

We really do hope this clears up some issues and, hopefully, it gives you a better insight into what we do.

Once again If you have any troubles with access please contact one of the Admins/Mods, or if you have any suggestions or complaints, you can post them here:

https://thegaslightanthem.forumotion.com/t4293-forum-complaints-constructive-criticisms

Or even if you just want to say hi, we're always around.

Thank you all for contributing to DSS and for making it such a strong, positive and appreciated fan community. It means a lot.

The DSS Team