Moderation Team Status Update

Battlefield 4 General Discussion
1

I know there’s been a great deal of concern regarding the moderation of this subreddit, especially with regards to the behavior of the subreddit’s founder, trollingisfun. After some internal discussion, trollingisfun has agreed to step down as head moderator.

Furthermore, upon reviewing some users’ claims of censorship, I did find several instances where trollingisfun had needlessly removed posts that were critical of the subreddit. It doesn’t mean much now, but we’ve gone through the spam list and fished these posts out. They should now be fully visible.

While it is true that this subreddit previously held a pink joke theme during the trollingisfun era, our current theme was imported from /r/battlefield3 and improved by littleredrex, mxmstrmnky, and drakeg4. If you have any questions, complaints, or suggestions with regards to the subreddit’s look and feel, please be sure to message the moderators with your feedback.

Finally, I’d like to emphasize that this subreddit is now in good hands. Myself and mxmstrmnky were active moderators on /r/badcompany2, and littleredrex is a moderator on nearly every modern battlefield subreddit, including /r/battlefield3, /r/badcompany2, and /r/battlefield_4. Additionally, we’re pleased to be joined by Ralgor and ReaverXai, both moderators from /r/RUGC.

We also know that a lot of you are concerned over dividing the community between this subreddit, /r/battlefield_4, and /r/battlefield. The moderators of these communities have planned to discuss this matter on Sunday.

Feel free to post any comments or questions you have in this thread; we’ll try to address them in a timely manner.

Thanks for your time!

-Your /r/battlefield4 Moderation Team

2

Not buying it

3

Sweet deal. So will you and /r/battlefield_4 be merging then?

4

We obviously don’t want to pointlessly split the community, so we’ll definitely be trying to work something out with them. There’s still quite a bit of mistrust and animosity stemming from trollingisfun’s rather hostile domain camping, but with littleredrex as a moderator on both subreddits I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.

5

The least we can do is discuss it, it’s a difficult topic but I am sure we’ll work something out!

6

I hope this will be the new Battlefield4 subreddit, there are already too many and it’s getting a bit confusing lol

7

Jamal, you’ve been a moderator here and friend of trollingisfun since the trolling started way back.

By my judgement this comment here looks like sarcastic laughter between friends about the situation, referring to clearly NOT bf4 content as bf4 content, presumably an inside joke between friends about the whole thing and the way you were using the sub back then as your own little club house correct? At first glance it may appear as denouncement of it, but it has tonnes of sarcasm and reeks of inside joke to me.

http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield4/comments/wug0t/trolling_floor_iii_children_of_summer_is_up_and/

So, while you’re still here, a member and participant in the original trolling, how can anyone trust that your friend won’t be readded later down the line and that trolling won’t recommence?

Further to that, I’m in fact really disappointed in every one of these moderators, firstly for not taking a few minutes to look deeper before putting their names/reputations to endorsing something. It’s not the attitude or activity of people putting the community first, it’s a bunch of people over eager to be in charge of stuff.

Let me put it another way. The community comes first on reddit, always, not anyone’s over eager desire to have a bit of power, be a figurehead of sorts, or treat anything in any manner as a big game. People’s endorsement of this subreddit while it was untrustworthy effectively represents putting themselves before the community, because they’re will to allow people to make a decision based on their reputation despite something not being proven trustworthy yet. And, if they think it IS trustworthy, then they’ve just demonstrated a lack of foresight, something I don’t think should be demonstrated by people capable of putting a community first.

This has messed around and confused the reddit battlefield community for over a year now, starting with my request to trollingisfun for the subreddit to be handed over, well over a year ago, when I was unhappy with the then hierarchically top mod of battlefield3 and the way things were turning out over there.

FURTHER to all of this, several backroom deals and private talks have been attempted, by numerous groups, including moderators of /r/battlefield3 asking for a merge with /r/battlefield, something that didn’t happen because myself and others there decided it wasn’t best for the community. They wanted to merge but solely and only if they were all given mod positions. And now there’s talks going on about organising a large IRC chat between all the moderators to “discuss options”.

The community IS NOT a commodity, it is not something to barter with, it is not something that can be used to trade power, they are people, thousands of people wanting a place to call their next battlefield home, they have their own minds, yet tonnes of manipulation, backroom deals and dodgy talks and bargains have been attempted to throw them around.

Over the last year this has taken up, on and off, an inordinate amount of my time, reading all the bullshit that’s occurred, putting in my two cents and making people realise the absolute nonsense flying around. More recently this shit has kicked off so much that it’s slowed down the work I’ve been trying to do for /r/battlefield - the part that annoys me the fucking most.

Why? Because I just want to make a subreddit that supports the community, includes wikis, includes guides for every game similar to the one I ran in /r/battlefield3, includes technical support for common issues on all the titles, includes community support for all the reddit based battlefield communities helping to promote them, maybe even support the competitive community down the line. What I don’t want to be doing is wasting my time pointing out over and over again to people the bullshit that’s been flying around.

In the last modmail I received I made it quite clear I was on the edge of blowing my stack. I’m unhappy with literally absolutely everything that’s occurred with regards to this.

Call me successfully trolled, either way this needs to stop, right now. All the advertising of all the different subreddits needs to stop. Dodgy deals need to stop. Attempting to trade and merge communities needs to stop.

And most of all mods need to start putting the community first, instead of their overbearing desire to be in charge of the community.

/I just quit smoking, I don’t need this shit. I need a cigarette.

EDIT: Well, that was just supposed to be a really short question pointing out Jamal is friends with and part of the original group that was running the trolling. It became a bit more than that I guess.

8

This is so lame, I want the old pink battlefield4 back. You guys are sellouts!

9

Maybe he was just a lurker? You shouldn’t view his opinion differently just because he decided to create an account just now.

10

^ This. There is overwhelming evidence nothing has changed here. The same underlying structures are still there. Some of these moderators have claimed to be RL friends with trollingisfun. There is nothing stopping him from being added back later and wreaking havoc on the subreddit or worse. The rest of the “legit” looking moderators have actually said very little, if anything, on all this. Are they just here in name? Why did it take this long for this post to be made?

I think this is all being rushed too much and we should take a step back. BF4 release is months away. Let the community decide for themselves where they want to call home for BF4.

I also think an IRC meetup between all the battlefield mods would be a disaster. Especially if you include all the /battlefield_4 moderators, which is at 17 moderators now. You have a total of 30 subreddit moderators all talking at once, all claiming their subreddit is better than everyone elses. Basically, you’re treating redditors as a commodity as Skitrel put it.

On top of all this there may not be a need for title-specific subreddits anymore. Based on this poll a majority of users don’t want to migrate between subreddits every game release and would rather stay on one subreddit for the entire series. Most gaming subreddits do it that way, it’s time battlefield caught on. Shameless plug for /r/battlefield. We’re getting ready to implement a “Filter by Game” option soon and we have lots more in store for redditors over the next coming months. Every moderator is involved, working on something awesome, which isn’t something you see with a lot of subreddits.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion on all this. I really hope this thread is that last time we have this silly subreddit drama between the battlefield subreddits, at least for the next few months.

11

You’re right in asserting that the community of redditors who use reddit to discuss battlefield games is not a commodity and can’t be traded like one. Honestly I think we need to just step back and let the users make their own choices, like BF3 user WildBill82 says in this comment.

On that note, I’d like to point out that /r/battlefield4 has avoided extensive advertising on /r/battlefield3 and elsewhere. We’ve been here, working on making this subreddit a welcoming place so that when redditors go looking for Battlefield 4 on reddit, they’ll find us.

All that being said, I agree with one of untempered_schism’s points in this thread. At this point, very little information is even available on Battlefield 4. Less than 10% of /r/battlfield3 subscribers have even bothered to subscribe to any particular new battlefield subreddit. I think we need to just take a passive approach and let redditors decide for themselves whether they want to subscribe to a catch-all battlefield subreddit or to a specific Battlefield 4 subreddit when the time comes.

I get that you’ve gotten emotionally invested in this mess, but I assure you that no one is trying to troll you here.

Also, I’m interested in your thoughts on why you decided to not accept some of the /r/battlefield3 mods as moderators on your subreddit. Why did you decide that it was better for the community to turn their offer down?

12

Why did you decide that it was better for the community to turn their offer down?

I can’t and won’t speak for all the mods, there was certainly for and against.

Personally it was a combination of things. The community doesn’t deserve to be bartered, the battlefield3 mods demanded all moderators or nothing, despite the fact some of the battlefield3 mods haven’t commented on reddit in months. In addition to this, drama involving Mordor formerly EAUK didn’t rub well with me way back when. The mordor people while brash and lacking in a civil tongue were some of the highest of contributors to /r/battlefield3 when it came to high quality posts. After some of them repeatedly had their posts removed from the subreddit due to anti-BF3 sentiments caused by a variety of things (maps, consoles, voip, squad size, commander, etc), labelled circlejerking and not contributing, all these members disappeared from submitting.

What followed was a steady decline. The subreddit went from a place of discussion, tactics, interesting deep strategy, well written guides, etc - into a place of videos, gifs, pics.

I was very VERY vocal about this for the longest time. At the very least I did my piece by regularly messaging the mods on advice animal and definitive rulebreaking. The thing is no support whatsoever was offered to stop the decline. You can in fact see just by looking at the subreddit where the effort put in by the moderators to support the community stopped dead - Top B2K servers, Top Armoured Kill servers… Nothing.

Also I was pretty annoyed at my newbie guide being relegated to sidebar. Things that support a community should be as visible as absolutely possible. In fact I’m a major hater of sidebar drop downs, while they look pretty and neaten it I’m almost certain they reduce the usage and user engagement of that zone.

And finally, I wasn’t particularly happy that mitsuhiko and red had become moderators here while trollingisfun was still top. Any user trust from people at /r/battlefield3 follows them, just as user trust from /r/gamernews, /r/freehugsbf3, /r/dating_advice, /r/hailcorporate, /r/relationships, etc follows me. Modding here represented endorsing the sub, people that don’t use reddit as often as you, I or the other hardcores, not often enough to be well up to date with the goings on here rely on the trustworthiness and good judgement of their caretakers. To me it seemed like either a demonstrable lack of care for putting community first, wanting to be in power more than caring about putting users into further confusion, or alternative - a clear lack of judgement and foresight.

So yeah, that sums up my issues with it, I can’t speak for the other mods. It had discussion, we made a group voted judgement call.

Just so you’re aware, as a result of all of this it’ll probably be 6 months and a dead subreddit before I start to entertain the idea there isn’t any more danger of a long troll. Simply far too much has gone through this. I’m royally surprised it hasn’t been fully summarised on srd yet.

Just want it to be clear that, whether you’re an eloquent writer or not, and the fact I’m entertaining response does not constitute trust in anyway. I don’t want someone thinking otherwise.

Really what I want from all of this is a well educated community. Unfortuantely all the competing battlefield subreddit groups (and each micro community in support of them) has been downvoting content from every other community, thus resulting in only very short term front pages, leading to a community that appears to largely be unaware any of this drama is occurring. Being fully aware of everything that has occurred would simply allow people to choose, as it stands I don’t think they’re choosing as opposed to being pushed, which isn’t cool.

13

I have to say, the poll is pretty useless.

Firstly, the question is too specific. “for all battlefields” puts a spin towards /r/battlefield, so does the answering option as no Subreddit name is mentioned for the iteration specific subs making people think “oh that’s complicated, I’ll just vote for /r/battlefield”

Honestly, the best way to decide is by letting the subs go to the Reddit they want, as Skitrel mentioned these are people not number. (the number do give good indications of what the people want, however)

/r/battlefield_4 will try to talk to the other subs to avoid confusion and to potentially help settle this debate.

The disadvantages of just having one sub for Battlefield until Reddit dies has already been discussed many times, a Subreddit tends to deteriorate in quality (mods can prevent this)

14

Good grief guys, it is just a fricken webpage

15

Linking to the last 2 comments on a long comment thread is taking things out of context don’t you think? It’s already stated in that thread that I have almost no knowledge of the politics of this subreddit.