The most interesting subreddit about things you're not interested in. Come here for writeups about drama in various hobbies, interests, and fandoms over the years.
Hello everyone, we're introducing two new rules!
Meta
Link to November/December Town Hall
The two new rules are:
Rule 13: Posts need to include sufficient sources or evidence to back up claims specifically relating to the core drama, such as through links and screenshots (with personal information redacted). Sources can either be linked in the text or included as a list at the end of the post, or in the comments. If sources are linked in the comments, said comment(s) must be posted as soon as the post goes live.
and:
Rule 14: The mods reserve the right to ban discussion indefinitely of any topic that may attract brigading and/or result in unnecessary toxicity. List here.
Rule 13 has been a part of rule 8 for a while, but it's been spun off into its own rule for simplicity's sake. Requiring sources improves the quality of posts in general, and it also helps to forestall situations where posts need to be taken down after basic facts are called into dispute.
Rule 14 is just codifying something that's been a part of scuffles for a while. There are some topics that are even too toxic for r/hobbydrama.
If you have any feedback or thoughts, please post them in the comments below!
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Q&A
For the sources, would secondary sources still work? (Mostly asking this for the sake of old forum drama, where half the time a lot of it gets lost or deleted)
Sure, as long as it supports the points made in the post.
I once almost cited that post about Hans Niemann and the anal beads in his ass, only to realize the words (u/EquivalentInflation, 2023) might give my professor an aneurysm and they hadn't cited where ChessBrah or Eric Hansen said "yeah the dude totally had a sex toy in his rectum"
So y'know, happy to see Rule 13 codified too
I just want you to know that your comment elicited such a strong “what the fuck” reaction that I just spent half an hour of my time reading the chess butt plug post. Thank you
tbh you could still do that. I've seen quite a few book nowadays source their citations in footnotes, and it always leaves me a bit surprised when the source is an url.
Rule 14: No, we are not discussing that game, it's a drama magnet.
Comment deleted by user
Mornington Crescent.
Are we playing the Chelsea-Scrumps variant or the more pedestrian Ian Holmes rules?
I don't know what you lunatics are on about, they obviously mean Fizzbin
I, for one, will never abide the new generation of Hooverball players.
I said good day! 🧐
Winnie the Pooh Baseball deserved it
Most owls can turn their heads 270 degrees in both directions. This owl can fuck itself in all directions.
fuck christopher robin
You can't fuck god...he is unfuckable.
Depends on the god, Zeus certainly begs to differ
I WILL NOT BE SILENCED
YOU WILL HEAR ABOUT BIG RIGS: OVER THE ROAD RACING
Such a philistine, Big Muther Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder is the superior PS2 trucking game.
You’re joking but you are right
I'm not joking.
Oh shit no more Elf Bowling fan-fiction brawls
Well that was a wasted afternoon...
What's wrong with Hello Kitty Island Adventures?
Beside the excessive grind, lack of content, push for multiplayer junk?
Guess it's a good thing it's locked behind Apple Arcade then.
That it's not Hello Sweet Days
You can't silence the destiny discourse.
Are there even any players left?
Idk, since bungie only talks about player spending now but at least on steam it's slightly ahead of monster hunter world.
I'm out of the loop. What game we talking about?
H#gwarts L#gacy. It just causes drama wherever it pops up, so, I think a ban on discussion about it is not a bad choice.
Oh....yeah I think it even stirred up controversy on day 1.
Last time I saw that was with The Last of Us 2. When we had discussion of making rules about bias in posts.
There was drama before that. I'm pretty sure the quarantine thread that was plan A to control the chaos came out a week or 2 before and even then it was too much for the mods to control. I can't imagine what it would have looked like without it's rule.
Isn't that just a hecklers veto then?
You'll take Agario anti/proshipping drama from my cold, dead hands
This had better be a joke
Excuse you, you're always playing Yellow Car!
aw but overwatch 2 drama is so good though
You WILL watch my 12 hour warhammer power point presentation
Faster than an actual full game though.
There were comments in the scuffles thread alluding to it, basically if THAT GAME is a banned topic when isn't Palestine one, and like all the comments got deleted?
I haven't even heard anyone talk about HP Lovecraft Legacy at all since it came out, is it really a drama magnet at this point?
I suppose its also due to the absolute shitshow that the last piece on JKR and her work was to mod and since nothing else really is coming out of that universe atm (and probably the sheer amount of old school drama that is wholly unrelated to the current transphobic views of the author that can still be safely discussed) that HP hasn’t been banned itself
Dread it, run from it, Three Houses discourse arrives all the same.
So what about offline drama? How would that be sourced?
My question exactly. In the early days of this sub I feel like people had great drama about their irl clubs and groups. I wish there were more of that.
Such writeups will probably have to be confined to scuffles.
Otherwise there's no way to distinguish between something that actually happened and just a creative writing exercise.
Is this an actual problem that happens though?
People already say they would do a writeup but for misinterpreting rule 7 to mean they have to write in some wikipedia-esque neutral tone, I only see this stymying more authors.
It definitely happens in other drama subs, but usually ones with many more members than this one. That said, I think what the mods are worried about is the fear that opening the door to potential fakes could open the door to that same toxic membership. It's a huge "what if" built atop an equally sizable slippery slope. But as someone whose job used to entail reading AITA for several hours a day, I can definitely understand the fear. That sub was significantly less toxic before they loosened the rules on what people could post.
But I would like to read some of these Rule 13 stories. Maybe there's a way to compromise besides just containing them to scuffles? Like maybe a sister sub?
Aw man, rule 13 is basically the death knell for any drama involving Facebook groups and ancient forums. RIP. I mean, it's a welcome addition to prevent misinfo, but man.
If I'm reading correctly, redacted screenshots of those sources would be okay. Or does it need to be links and screenshots?
Secondary sources are ok, so as long as there is a record elsewhere of the drama that can be used as evidence
Could we possibly have mods respond to threads in Scuffles when they're removed explaining why they're removed (stating the rule, for example)?
There's been a few times where I've seen a thread prior to removal, and felt it was probably fine, only for it to vanish the next day. It's also always just a little odd to see long graveyard threads with no explanation.
Question about pro vs. anti talk being banned; is this a ban on the topic entirely, or is it okay if the topic is mentioned in a write-up to provide context, as long as it's not the core of the story?
If it's integral to a write up, it should be okay.
Right, like... can we not talk about Voltron anymore?
How does rule 13 work if there aren't online sources?
Eg if it is purely off-line, there aren't records, or if any screenshots would be identifiable?
Is this not hobby drama, rather than purely online hobby drama? Plenty of the great classic write-ups didn't have a single screenshot.
Such writeups will probably have to be confined to scuffles.
Otherwise there's no way to distinguish between something that actually happened and just a creative writing exercise.
:/
Boooo!!! If the rules couldn't allow you to post the great clam chowder saga today, they suck! Mild hyperbole but this is truly a grave loss...
There should be a addendum or exceptions for this rule. Otherwise the truly obscure stuff that this subreddit is designed for will vanish.
noooo i love the pro/anti fights!
While I completely understand why it was cut, a part of me is a twinge sad as a lot of the stupidest (and wildest) fandom drama ultimately stems from pro/anti nonsense, and there's no way in hell I'm chatting about it on FFA.
yeah idk how its even going to be avoided on a practical level. i guess the rule might tip the balance against fandom drama in scuffles, which might not be a bad thing.
i honestly don't get why it was cut though. it doesn't have the real world stakes or strong degree of personal identity connected to it like the other two. it's just... a dumb thing teenagers argue about on X. it does disproportionately cause arguments on here, but those arguments are always fucking hilarious and fun to participate in. i would have expected ai art drama to be banned before this (not that i want it to either).
honestly i feel like both terms have become used so broadly that they've become functionally meaningless (ask two members of the same fandom what makes someone an antishipper and they may well give you wildly different answers), so maybe this will encourage people to say what they mean and explain shit, rather than just saying "x is an antishipper" or "y is a proshipper" and calling it a day? i do wonder about cases where that terminology is needed to provide context, so i did ask about that.
i kind of like the idea of enforcing a strict ban on the words themselves and nothing else. people can still talk about the topics, they just have to come up with a new way to describe them. idk if it'd work, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen.
I think there are two factors I'd put into why this was banned first: one, like the unnameable game, it seemed like it had a tendency to invite external brigading: a lot of the discussions on Scuffles that got to the "mods needed to wipe the thing from existence" point seemed to have someone who'd never been here before show up to pick fights as if they had been searching for the topic.
Second, the types of accusations and personal attacks in these arguments get particularly nasty, more so than many other volatile topics. When a topic gets to the point where "baseless accusation of frankly horrific crimes" is a common rhetorical tool, it should be removed.
And, frankly, I don't think most people find pointless arguments fun: they're boring because it's just people talking past each other rather than a real discussion, and they're generally stressful to be near because it always devolves into just a bunch of people getting angry.
most people don't find pointless arguments fun because they try to win them. if you resist that temptation there's a whole world of rhetorical possibility to explore.
My guess for this sort of mod stuff is always that comes from a fairly practical place. They look at all the threads they've had to squash, most of them have to do with a few topics, then they give themselves an easy way to preemptively squash those.
this is probably true, and i can accept it on those grounds. im a big believer in mods just directly banning things they/their community finds annoying rather than coming up with weird post-hoc justifications that people can try to rule-lawyer their way around. i just happen to be in the minority that doesn't find it annoying and is sad to see it go.
I think the issue might be we seem to have people from both sides on here? At least, that's how it looks to me from what I've seen scrolling on scuffles.
that's true of pretty much any drama though. im just saying i like watching people fight about it. it's the same dumb low stakes drama we all enjoy reading about, but brewed in-house.
Unfortunately, it isn't really low stakes anymore. An animator was recently outed to their job over it, lost the job, and then their chronic health condition deteriorated so badly while they were off of health insurance that they decided to get end of life care. These arguments are literally costing people their lives - I don't think it has a place on the silly lowstakes drama sub.
Jesus… Totally not trying to get into the weeds here but when/who was this? I’m pretty unplugged from fandom these days so how can I google this to understand what happened there?
this is kind of orthogonal to my point, but i feel like if your goal is to stop people from taking shipping fights so seriously... the solution probably isn't to put them on a topic blacklist containing the israel/palestine conflict. it kind of reminds me of those callout posts that say shit like:
drew hazbin hotel fan art
ships ginny weasley with peter pettigrew in rat form
shot ex-girlfriend's dog
steven universe diamond/fascism apologist
An animator lost what?!
Comment removed by moderator
IMO individual manifestations of pro/anti discourse can be interesting but the topic as an umbrella is incredibly uninteresting.
Getting into individual granular examples in a specific fandom and the ongoing dialog unique to that context? There’s a lot of room for interesting, weird, funny, and even thought-provoking conversation. Talking about whether or not it’s a “problematic power dynamic” for a time-traveler to have sex with a shapeshifter, and which person is actually more in power in that situation, can be super interesting and weird.
Talking about pro/anti discourse in general, abstract terms? Mind-numbingly boring. The same conversations that have been going on since the beginning of fandom, just stuck in an increasingly loud and annoying feedback loops.
yes the topic itself is boring, but that's part of what makes the fights over it so good. like i think kpop is the most dull shit on the planet but watching different fan groups have digital gang wars over it is great.
Eh after a while it usually devolves into the same shit over and over again and nobody really changing their stance one way or another.
Imo there's either not much to one of these arguments or it's someone being personally and directly abused/harassed and doxxed because of their views and that's, like, too much.
So I can understand where it comes from. I say this as someone who's seen a lot of that drama happen and it gets nasty and petty. But when it's not nasty and petty, there's nothing new or interesting or even funny to it. It's just... exhausting.
But maybe that's just me because I have an unpopular opinion about this topic anyway that I don't really want to go into because as it happens, it's much more nuanced than what Twitter would have you believe.
yeah honestly every thread i’ve seen in scuffles that mentions proshipping discourse follows the same beat. some “antishipper” attacks some “proshipper” on twitter and everyone in the replies is like “omg this is so terrible this is the worst thing that could ever happen this is what’s wrong with fandom these days back in the good old days we could ship in peace” etc etc. it’s just repetitive at best and tiring at worst, and i am personally glad i will no longer have to scroll past the same discussion about the 149264th manifestation of an argument that no one is changing their minds on
hahaha you're completely correct. i really don't know how to explain why i still like it. bit of a guilty pleasure maybe.
lol i cannot relate to that at all emotionally but on a logical(?) level i completely understand and you are so valid. i hope you find another guilty pleasure to fill the pro/anti discourse-shaped hole in your heart soon?!
for real; i'm genuinely heartbroken i didn't throw myself at more of them just to see what happens. you never know what you've got until it's gone...
The thing that gets me about it is like... there's only one side of those fights that's actively looking to pick fights and harass people. And it's not the folks making the posts about relevant topics (generally, there are of course exceptions).
the funny thing is i have no idea which side you're referring to because all of them say this
Both sides say this but I’ve only gotten death threats from one of them. In this context, that’s about as close to “actions speak louder than words” as I personally would like to get lol
well naturally one of the two sides is full of shit
Yeah like. There's some exceptions out there I'm sure but the entire argument behind Proship is "live and let live". So naturally proship people tend to not go out looking to fight with antis over their ships. Historically they just... make a new place to enjoy their thing. But antis are so wrapped up in their moral crusade that they seek out proship spaces to fight with people.
There's still a containment thread on the Discord server.
I'm rather of the opinion that nothing on the discord server should be considered relevant to how things are run here. Frankly I find it annoying that we contribute to the online overreliance on discord, and I feel like its existence could easily begin fracturing the commenter base here and causing its own splinter drama (if that isn't already happening).
Oh, it's already happening. I'd say Reddit HD and Discord HD are two very different factions at this point and neither is representative of the other. The blackout exodus there was a good and bad thing in that the Scuffles thread is a lot less hostile and slapfighty, but also it's definitely seen less activity. At least it's more active now.
cut them some slack, they're just trying to get me my fix
The Discord thread (from what little I saw of it) is just as repetitive and also full of Main Characters trying to assert dominance in a messy topic. If anything it's a good example of why banning it as a topic is a good thing.
i guess that's some comfort...
This is more for the sake of principle, but are there any proverbial checks and balances on rule 14? The wording is pretty clear in a sense, but that kind of unilateral right has potential for abuse, in theory. Are there ways for regular users to petition revisions of the ban list? Or discussions thereof? Transparency regarding lines of thought on what gets banned? Evidence of brigading? (might be kind of obvious to tell in a sub like this in a sense but it's a claim that's easy to make and weaponize)
Not trying to imply future misconduct from the mods or anything of the sort, but rules like 14 do represent an ever so slightly slippery slope. Not to bring up a painful memory, but the mods did unilaterally decide to shut down the sub indefinitely in the wake of the protest.... So I'm interested in accountability is all.
EDIT, to elaborate some more:
I get that some topics are too radioactive to handle properly for a sub like this - the vibe has always gone for "cozy, witty and somewhat detached from the front-line trenches of the drama" The country club reacting to news and recounting amusing stories from their hobbies as it were. And thus, some topics will not be workable within that framework. But trying to preempt this with a list kind of stifles that vibe too. There's always gonna be that risk, that tiny kernel of uncertainty that your topic of discussion could get put on there if the discourse gets loud and uncomfortable enough. Some things, we can tell at a glance that "yes, maybe don't bring this super loaded topic up here of all places" Others are more in the line of "the baggage around the topic overtakes any discussion and also ruins the vibe"
But that last one is harder to predict. Sure, most everyone on this sub knew the baggage surrounding the game that prompted rule 14 and that it was likely gonna be a shitshow drama-wise. We probably didn't expect rampant brigading to occur to the point of forcing even the quarantine thread to be nuked. In my opinion though, the more reactive approach worked well enough. Once it became clear that discussion wan't gonna work, then it got banned as a special thing, outside the established framework of the rules. I'll be honest and admit that I've on occasion found the continuing ban a bit silly - "the games's been out for a while now, surely the toxicity is down to manageable levels" but I've relented partly because I have no personal interest in the topic and because I trust the mods to know if, or when it would be a "safe" topic.
But in formalizing a framework to ban things, that collective sense of "yeah, let's make an exception here and keep this toxic muck out of the room" disappears. Now it's the mods who can make that decision at their leisure, and it invites a different sort of vibe. It's like the episode Stakeout from Brooklyn Nine Nine - making a formal list of what's not allowed just invites adding on to it and creating an underlying vibe of hostility.
On the other hand I also understand that the mods have to face down things differently, and so there's a need for updating the framework. My view of a sort of collective agreement to not talk about certain things only holds water for so many items - eventually you get a list anyways. But I'm not certain I'm all aboard the mods making a formal rule about it.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the "whatever we feel like" part. I think it should be reasonable to ban one that obviously attracts drama, but that should be evidence-based, like the.HL stuff, demonstrated results, not moderator *assumption ".
The thing about "demonstration" is that there's no evidence of most mod actions. Once they delete a comment or post, it's gone. If you didn't happen to witness the problem in real time, you'll never know it happened at all.
Well, look at the Hogwarts stuff, for example. That attracted a lot of drama, and that's why it was banned.
I mean something like that; a rule that is reactive, not proactive. That's used after a topic has proven to be a constant liability; not for just one occasion. See the multiple HL dramas, or the Israel/Palestine stuff that anyone can see is always going to be a shitshow.
Half Life?
Theyre reddit mods, there are no checks and balances on them unless they fuck up badly enough to get site admins involved
replied to this here
This made me think about it too, and I totally agree. It's so weird to me, but yeah; Having a rule be "This is a list of banned topics" somehow feels much worse than if there were three separate rules banning one of them each, or even just Rule 14.1/14.2/14.3. (I also don't like having the list be a link to a specific page but that has less to do with ethics and more general usability, since people already ignore the rules quite frequently)
Rule 14 should be the nuclear option, and even if it still is, having it become a "written" rule versus an "unwritten" rule makes that nuclear option feel less special, and thus need more clarification.
We have the Town Hall for direct discussions between mods and users. The first two items on the list have been banned in scuffles for a while and all discussions about them tended to devolve into shitshows, and the third one was added today after numerous requests after a particular comment thread went nuclear. We did promise to be clear with whatever changes we made to the subreddit, hence why we made this thread and only added a rule to ban specific topics only after it became necessary. We'll assess each topic and make judgements as time passes.
Eyup, we're taking all feedback into account. Trying to read every comment here.
We did try to briefly unban discussions about "the game" but it quickly went south, so it was re-added. It did just get a switch release and I've seen the controversy brought up numerous times on other subreddit. It seems as long as the HP franchise is popular, the controversy will follow it.
From my perspective, as a mod of numerous large subreddits, once a sub passes a certain threshold amount of users (a million) it becomes harder to moderate. I'd rather have a rule (in this case a list of banned topics) that's open for all users to see rather than one that's hidden and arbitrarily applied.
I think you might have replied to the wrong comment. (Unless you wanted to have it as a wrap up to both of our comments)
Thanks!
What it basically comes down to is when radioactive subjects get breached, it's a ton of work for the mods to police things.
kotakuinaction for example is pretty close to getting sub banned by the admins.
What constitutes as pro/antiship? Is the current drama about KPOP stars liking Made in Abyss an example? Is the recent post about Black Sails and Our Flag Means Death an example? Is the years old post about homophobes brigading an Inazuma Eleven popularity poll to ensure a character popular with gay shippers loses an example? Is the entirety of Voltron an example? Is making jokes about Edward Cullen being 100+ years old and dating a high schooler an example?
Sorry, but this seems like such a nebulous rule that I can't imagine it being enforced in an unbiased way.
Nope, all fandom stuff like that is fine. It's for discussions that actually use the terms "proshipping/antishipping". E.g. debates about the morality of shipping itself (For instance, I knew someone who was called a pedo because they shipped an underage character with an adult).
Sorry, I'd like to ask for clarification on this point. Is "Sheith fans were called pedophiles by some who didn't like the ship, while some Sheith fans accused those against the ship of being pro-censorship" okay, because it doesn't use the words "proshipper" or "antishipper"? Or is it okay as long as the person doing the write-up doesn't take a side? What about incidents where the people involved in the drama called themselves or each other pros and antis? Should those specific incidents just be left out of write-ups entirely? Or will this sort of thing be judged case-by-case?
I hope this doesn't come off as snarky; I'm genuinely unclear on where the line is. I agree there are definitely times when going into pro vs anti nonsense just stirs up trouble, but sometimes that whole discourse is relevant to the story.
The rule is for people in the comments/scuffles who start arguing about shipping and throwing insults around etc.
Oh, that makes a lot more sense. The way it's phrased on the banned topics list, I thought it was just a no-go subject entirely, including write-ups. Thank you for clarifying.
So is it okay then to talk about things that are fallouts of shipping drama (ex: zine participators getting kicked out of the zine, people trying to get popular fanartists fired for drawing 'proship', someone on twitter with a take about how X character is a minor at 17 and the 18 y/old they're dating is a pedo, etc) as long as we're not arguing with one another or making it personal?
So, for clarity - if people in scuffles start making accusations based on shipping should we now be reporting it?
So if I say, I do a write up(whatever it drama or history) on that Interview with a vampire zine that got canceled when people pointed how ridiculous the guidelines were. Would that still be allowed since while it did contain now banned topics. It’s important since a major part of the zine rules was banning any content of this nature. Especially since the zine focus in question is not actually one of morality.
Write ups should be good, it's mainly people arguing in the comments the rule is for.
Thanks, just wanted to make sure
Oop 💀 sorry for being snippy with my post and thank you for the answer.
Rule 13 question: What are sufficient sources?
For example I have been working on a writeup of a forum implosion. The relevant forum threads, due to aforementioned implosion, does not exist anymore. The internet archive does not have the dates of the drama, only before and the aftermath. There might be a mod post obliquely referencing the fallout I could find, but nothing specific.
Would that be sufficient proof, or are detailed receipts needed ala a 2014 Tumblr callout post?
Given how much drama is, in fact, not neatly recorded, I feel this rule is only going to further discourage people from producing writeups for fear of having their effort deleted.
Also it would disqualify some of what I consider quintessential hobby drama writeups. eg the fanwiki saga by u/Iguankick. Or even some of the award winning sneakerhead writeups by u/freemanboyd don't actually have a 3rd party source for the core drama. Orthis one, or this one, or this one.
And frankly, if the above isn't sufficient, I'm not going to bother continuing my writeup at all because it's too long of a story to fit in a single comment in scuffles. And even if it was it will get sunk after a day in the scuffles churn, and then in a week it'll be lost forever with the new thread.
Secondhand sources are fine.
Those would be fine.
And for a lot of original posts it sounds like the OPs did sufficient research to write about their claims. As for similar write ups, All they would really need to do (in future) would be to include a list of reasearch material and similar sources at the end of a post.
Then imo the rule description should be rewritten to make this clear because, as it stands, it makes it seem like screenshots of the actual drama itself are needed.
I can’t view the lost of banned topics :( There’s simply no link on my end.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/wiki/banned_topics/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=HobbyDrama&utm_content=t5_k4fie
Thanks!
Honestly, I think the most frustrating thing about pro vs anti Isn't the topic, but that the words themselves just... don't have a meaning. The people who use these words sure think they mean something, but if you're using the same word to refer to a person who ships a 17-year-old and a 18-year-old that you also use to refer to an actual pedophile, then maybe that word is very bad at getting the point across to me. Same thing if you use the same word to refer to a non-sisterfucker that you use to refer to the guy who murders everyone who glances too hard at two character (Something which, I assure you, most definitely happens according to my very credible sources at tumblr.com)
I am curious about the mention of brigading in rule 14 due to that evidently being contentious.
Basically, is that hypothetical and the rule is detailing the purposes for which you'll ban a topic, or has brigading been a specific problem? From a moderators perspective does being brigaded look distinct from people getting riled up?
Also a clarifying question, are you intending to pre-emptively ban topics? The 'may' in there implies as such, but that seems odd to me (as opposed to banning a topic as a reaction to a problem), and now I'm wondering if that reading is what is driving some angry commenters. Do y'all got some precog mods floating in a pool somewhere?
I haven't seen brigading on this subhave been corrected on this point.Nope only when something proves to be contentious.
Wasn’t the big post about JKR’s descent into TERFdom brigaded? It’s the number three post of all time and was locked for brigading.
I saw (and commented) on the quarantine thread for The Game That Shall Not Be Named, and imo, there was definitely brigading going on in that thread. It wasn't just that people who don't usually post on hobbydrama were posting, but the level of activity and the kind of activity were different than how things usually go here. I'm talking stuff like comments pointing out transphobia being downvoted and concern trolled, trans users being accused of virtue signaling, lots of transphobic comments, etc. It was a complete and utter shitshow, and it was really obvious there was a brigade.
That’s a good example. Corrected my comment.
I'll also ask here since I, and others, have asked in the town hall threads and received no response: will the rules / description of what counts as a hobby be enforced, edited, or clarified?
For example, the sidebar says:
Most drama between professionals is not hobby drama, ... unless the professionals are interacting with hobbyists/fans.
Drama must have active involvement by hobbyists to qualify as hobby drama.
Non-drama posts (tales and/or histories about your hobby) must be flaired as Hobby History. Hobby History posts are quality, detailed writeups of interesting non-drama events in your hobby.
Let's be real, 90% of writeups do not count as hobby drama under the sub's stated description of what a hobby is, but are not removed or commented on by the mod team.
Tbf that's why we have the hobby history tag. We probably will need to rework the description at some point.
I know, but given the rule about correct flaring is not enforced, why introduce new rules?
Also y'all really need to get better at responding to and being visible in the town hall threads. I raised this issue 9 months ago, and others had in town halls before that one - all with no action or even acknowledgement by the mod team.
I reposted this here because actually getting a mod to reply to a question feels like a rarity in the supposed place to have a discussion with the mods.
Rule 14 needs changing. That's just begging for.some mod with an axe to grind to abuse it..
It should be only about things that have and do result in those kinds of messes - "could* is entirely insufficient. Any jumped up prick can say something " could" cause drama and toxicity. Don't like it. It's a power grab.
Rule 13 is great and much appreciated, especially since there are definitely some bad-faith actors out there that would abuse this space otherwise, so I appreciate the mods laying it down.
I remember a while back that there was a post (that was removed quickly by the mods, so no complaints on how it was handled!) that was someone genuinely trying to stir up slander against someone I know IRL. I'm not going to say who they are, but essentially they had a list of people in fandom that they would try to slander by accusing them of various RL violent crimes against third parties -- that had no evidence because those crimes never actually happened (said person has never actually met any of this people in the real world, so things like 'locations' or 'real names' were usually missing). And it was frightening to see it even for the brief span of time that it was online, because I knew that it could have just started up a whole new chain of harassment for someone who hadn't done anything wrong.
I liked it when no one knew this subreddit existed.
I think our Mods are pretty level headed… I guess we’ll see how it goes.
All the people wailing about mod "power grabs", over reach, etc seem to be extremely fuzzy about Reddit in general.
On Reddit, mods have always had the right to run their subreddits as they see fit so long as they uphold the site-wide policies and (now) follow the Code of Conduct. Each sub is entirely independent, Reddit functions like a community center with hundreds of thousands of meeting rooms which have organizations in them as diverse as churches, sports fields, bookstores and biker bars. That fact that you even offer Town Halls is commendable.
Sub rules don't grant mods extra power, they help clarify things for users. Mods have always been able to make judgement calls on whatever appears within their communities - what is locked, what is removed and who is banned. Reddit is not about to change this, especially since it has turned out that finding more people to volunteer hours of their time to work for free is harder than they had hoped. Some subs whose mods walked away during the API debacle have yet to reopen, and some are effectively unmoderated, I'm observing a few. Reddit won't remove those subs until the spammers realize and flood them with garbage.
In the end, if you don't like how your local chess club is run, you can leave and look for another one or start your own. As long as an organization is following local ordinances and state/federal laws, they can operate as they wish. Why people think that groups that choose to meet online are magically different is a mystery to me.
Having Crowd Control cranked up to maximum all of the time is a bit restrictive (many subs turn it up case by case if a post starts attracting borderline activity) but using CC and having Automod triggered by keywords to drop things into the mod queue for review is quite common.
Using CQS scores is
constantlysignificantly harder to justify since it is murky in what constitutes "quality" and a considerable number of people I know who have been responsible users for some time are being labelled only "Moderate."I think the people complaining that Rule 14 is dictatorial are kind of missing the point; the whole moderation structure of this (and most other similar forums) is dictatorial. If people think that's a problem (obviously a dictatorship is a problem on a larger scale, but I'm not convinced it's an issue on a smaller scale), they should be calling for moderators to be elected or for the creation of an "impeachment" process of moderators who the community wants out. Otherwise, it kind of seems like people are saying "It's fine for the moderators to have dictatorial power, but we don't want them to admit they use it."
With that said, I think having the (currently very short) list of banned topics in a link rather than directly in the rules section is going to create more work for the mods. If you make sure all of the important information is easily available to users at a glance, you are setting them up to succeed at not breaking the rules; you are making it easy to be a good user.
I also think the ban on pro-anti discourse could use some clarification. I agree with it in principle, but 1) people not in the trenches of fandom discourse may not even understand what that term means, 2) fandom people may struggle with drawing line between shipping drama in general and pro/anti discourse, since so much of fandom drama does start fading into the pro-anti nightmare around the edges. From other comments on this post, it sounds like the mods intend the rule to be more specific than "nothing that even remotely connects to pro-anti drama is allowed," but that merits clarification in the rules themselves, not just in comments.
Thank you all for your hard work, love this sub!
How do mods determine "brigading" or not? What exactly is "brigading"?
If I don't post here often, am I brigading by reading this? How do you determine whether a poster is a permitted part of the community and when are they evil foreigners who should be expelled at all costs?
Edit: I'm having a lot of my replies removed without warning. Can any mod tell me which rules I am breaking in those removed comments?
Brigading is when users who aren't members of the sub come over and spam/troll users who are members of the sub. Sometimes it can bein concentrated groups, e.g. if one sub sets uo efforts to "brigade" another. This is against Reddit TOS.
This is the more pertinent reason for rule 14.
How do you determine who is a member of the
clubsub and who isn't? Are you planning on skin colour tests like BPT?Only reddit can really see. There is crowd control but that is a really desperate measure.
nope
That's not really reassuring. Rule 14 as written now is a blank cheque to do whatever you want whenever you want without any accountability. Who is brigrading and what constitutes a brigade is very complicated and is often just a natural part of reddit. Getting to the Front Page of the Internet(tm) is a feature of reddit, not a bug.
Here's how I would fix Rule 14 to keep the mod team accountable and transparent:
Now everyone is clear what is permitted and what is not.
This line of thought is exactly why I want there to be a clear line of evidence/definition from the mods regarding the topic. It's very easy to use brigading as a tool to justify bans without showing the receipts.
As an example, when the RWBY sub tried to unilaterally blanket ban anyone who'd been participating in the RWBYCritics sub, brigading was one of the big reasons they touted - without a shred of presented evidence for it outside of "just trust me bro" The ban was reverted within 24 hours after universal backlash and no evidence ever made it out, giving the impression (right or wrong) that it was largely used a subjectively charged cudgel as opposed to an actual reason.
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That's not what brigading is. Brigading is a concerted effort by an outside group to interfere with a sub's regular activities through karma manipulation, spamming reports, starting arguments, etc because of whatever topic or situation they don't like. It creates a wave of sudden toxicity that's very obvious when it actually happens.
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Brigading is when one community becomes outraged at the antics of another and the members (individually or as a group), goes to wherever that other community posts and makes a mess, usually a bunch of posts expressing their displeasure, and an end result that whatever forum is no longer useful for its original purpose.
Basically its a complex social behavior that will have disputable examples, borderline examples, and clear cut examples but (probably?) lacks an equivalent to a legal test you could apply to determine if it was or was not brigading.
To address your other question; what do you think? Its clear from your framing that you haven't really thought this through so I encourage you to do so - I would suggest not thinking about it terms of 'permitted' and 'evil foreigners' though because I suspect it is distracting you. What is being part of a community? If you are only present for a one-off event would you consider yourself part of the hosting community?
Oh that's a good point. I've (mostly) lurked for years and years, does that look like a brigade if I decide to comment?
brigading is an active, coordinated effort to interrupt a sub's normal activity by another group/sub. one lurker making a comment is not brigading; you're fine.
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key word is interrupt. brigading is negative and usually includes harassment or manipulation in some form. a one-off negative comment on a thread is not brigading. if there's suddenly three or four negative comments and a sharp tick in downvotes on multiple posts then it's likely brigading.
to use an video game example, i believe a big-name minecraft youtuber brigaded animal jam with the intention of disrupting normal gameplay, like spamming curse words in the chat and overwhelming the servers with sheer numbers. one new player swearing at someone else wouldn't be considered brigading, but since this guy coordinated a large-scale effort to interrupt the gameplay, it was a brigade.
if the sub hits r/all and we get a bunch of new peeps who don't know the rules and get argumentative it's also not a brigade, just the consequences of hitting the front page.
Less about brigading and more about creating toxicity. Said toxicity tends to also attract brigading.
I understand that pro/anti discourse is a difficult issue that many people are sick of, but i really think that banning discussion of drama related to it is unreasonable. Like 90 percent of fandom drama these days has connections to or is caused by pro/anti stuff, because pro and anti shipping are so broad as labels and interpreted differently by everyone. Looking at how the mods have written it, i dont even know what exactly I'm supposed to avoid talking about.
I guess people are just gonna have to be a bit more specific about what happened now. Like no more falling back on just using those two labels as a crutch.
i feel like Destiny (the streamer) drama will eventually fall under rule 14, his fanbase really loves to brigade and control the narrative, especially when Hasan Piker is involved
I'd think Destiny/Hasan Piker content would fall under rule 9 already.
The what drama?
Has that happened on this sub?
wouldn't surprise me if it has
Great! I've seen rumors passed off in posts without a shred of evidence here and I didn't like it. I am here for quality gossip, not an uncritical retelling of everything any twitter user said against someone.
Perhaps the link is busto just for me, but the link to the list of banned topics doesn't seem to be working
Finally the rule 14. Those banned topics are being discussed with the same maturity of 14 y.o.s on CoD.
I understand Rule 14, but using it as a blanket check to ban any discussion that is related to the Israel/Palestine conflict is not it IMO.
Specially as we are seeing the consequences of McCarthyism, with people being fired/blackslisted for expressing solidarity with Palestine, which is having an effect on hobbies that are discussed all the time here.
For example, are we going to be prohibited from talking about The Game Awards because there is a good chance that somebody will say something about this conflict there? Or are we going to have to just ignore the big elephant in the room?
NGL the Israel/Palestine conflict goes far beyond what is hobby drama
Idk if tiofrodo is the person who posted in the scuffle thread about the same thing, but that person was specifying hobby stuff related to Israel/Palestine. Like idk if Jane Doe of Jane Doe's Famous Yarn Company started a fundraiser to raise money for one of the countries, while that drama is about hobbies (yarn and yarn crafts) it's still related to let's say difficult political issues. So I think that's what tiofrodo meant.
I don't disagree, but my point isn't about discussing the conflict itself, but things happening because of the conflict, like the Scream actress being fired and another dipping because of it.
Extrapolating from the discussion on pro/anti shipping upthread, the intent is to prevent turning posts into yet another battleground of contentious topics. So mentioning the contentious topic as part of a drama is fine, but if it causes people to start a flame war about the topic in the comments, it’s gonna get locked, and a demonstrable pattern of such will probably get the topic banned wholesale.
But we already have the thread of the Scream actress being deleted and I assume the followup to the story won't be allowed either.
I feel like we skipped a step here.
Without constant monitoring from mods, it's impossible to stay on the topic of the actress's firing and not devolve into the topic of the conflict itself. The thread proved that right almost immediately and was nuked.
And I am fine with the banning/time out of both people that were going at it even though I agreed with one of them. Just think that this is throwing the baby alongside the bathwater, and there will be lots of babies going forward.
It was so bad I was getting mass downvotes for saying Hamas are bad guys.
Like I said in that thread there is no question that the topic should be banned.
A topic about the game show awards is about the game show awards, not the conflict, which can easy be mentioned without going into detailed about the conflict.
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I think you meant to post this in scuffles
Whoops! Sorry about that, I must have messed up tabs. Apologies.
Hah I don't mind. i love chess drama.
I am new here, and this made me chuckle out loud for some reason.