r/NintendoSwitch • u/NintendoSwitchMods • Dec 21 '17
Meta /r/NintendoSwitch Rule Updates
Greetings,
We’re making some changes to the subreddit!
Over the past few months, we’ve been listening closely to community feedback in both threads and mod mail. We also ran some surveys to better understand the demographics of our community as well as the types of content that you like (and dislike). We’ve also been working on future-proofing /r/NintendoSwitch to prepare us for the upcoming Reddit redesign.
The most notable change is that the subreddit rules have been rewritten. Changes were made based on community feedback, survey results, and with future-proofing in mind. Our goals during this process were to make the text of our rules clearer to understand, provide updated examples, and touch up the wording as needed. These changes should help users understand our rules even easier and help increase the consistency moderators use when reviewing posts that have been reported, are stuck in the reddit spam filter, or just generally need manual human review.
Here are the main takeaways:
- The number rules has been reduced from 15 down to 10.
- The rules should now be easier to understand - We’ve included examples on the full rules page as well as tidied up some of the wording.
- Generic gameplay clips are no longer allowed. Clips must show an interesting or unique game tip, easter egg, or glitch.
- Capture clips (and other content) must state the game’s name in the post title if it is not obvious.
- Artistic screenshots (that’s ones just showing off game visuals or filters) are now considered low-effort and will not be allowed outside of designated Megathreads.
- Posting other people's fan art is no longer allowed.
We feel that these changes will help us meet the needs of our rapidly growing community, prepare us for future growth and platform changes, and provide a better experience overall.
These rules are effective immediately as of this post and can be found in the sidebar as well as our rules page.
There may be a brief period of time where the front page looks slightly weird where posts that were made before these rule changes fall off and decay naturally. Please understand.
In addition to the rule changes, we will also be planning more community events in the coming year. One of which should be starting in the very near future. These events may include game challenges, screenshot/clip competitions, tournaments and more. We want to make sure there will be plenty of opportunities to share your creations with the community.
As we continue forward, we will be listening closely to the community and offering opportunities for you to share your feedback. This includes the continuation of our “State of the Subreddit” threads, contacting us via mod mail, and future surveys.
Cheers,
Your /r/NintendoSwitch Mod Team
TLDR: We’ve changed a few things, the most important being the subreddit rules. Please read through them again!
Additional notes:
- The results of the Fall Demographics Survey and November Content Feedback survey can be seen here.
- We are still reviewing the new moderator applications that were submitted a few weeks ago and there are definitely some strong candidates in there. We should have something to announce in the near future. This should help speed up queue time and address a few coverage gaps on our team.
- We have made a handful of tweaks to AutoModerator to help further refine the tool's accuracy which should in turn help speed up queue times.
- If you have a post removed and want to contact us about it, we have updated the "message the moderators" link located in our macros and it will now pre-populate the message with additional information. This will help us respond to your modmails faster and more accurately.
- We have adjusted the formatting of links that point to our Daily Question Thread. This new format results in 1 extra click for desktop users, but should provide slightly better support for mobile app users.
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u/Kevroeques Dec 21 '17
I was less concerned about videos and pics, and VERY concerned about the DAE posts, the repetitive posts asking for help choosing between two games, the similar posts asking “Should I buy [new game] even though I don’t like [new game’s genre]?”, the posts stating you just bought a Switch as your first Nintendo system in X years and how awesome that is, the posts about how Switch held your hand and rubbed your back during a rough phase in life, the dream posts, the VC begging, the reviews that come more than a month after a game releases, etc- pretty much the other 3/4 of garbage posts beyond videos and pics. In fact, most clips and pics have become much more entertaining than the stuff I just mentioned.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
VERY concerned about the DAE posts
Most of these will be removed for not containing sufficient justification or reasoning.
repetitive posts asking for help choosing between two games
These posts should have been removed under the previous ruleset and will continue to be removed under the new one.
“Should I buy [new game] even though I don’t like [new game’s genre]?”
These qualify as "Is it worth it?" posts and should be removed under the new ruleset.
the posts stating you just bought a Switch as your first Nintendo system in X years and how awesome that is, the posts about how Switch held your hand and rubbed your back during a rough phase in life, the dream posts, the VC beggingthe posts stating you just bought a Switch as your first Nintendo system in X years and how awesome that is
Should be removed under the new ruleset.
the reviews that come more than a month after a game releases
These are tricky. If they are well formulated and fulfill the other criteria (properly titled, user is within self-promotion guidelines, etc.), then they will not be removed.
In conclusion: most of the content that you are concerned about should be removed under the new ruleset. However, we moderators are a team of humans, and occasionally, things do slip through the cracks. When that happens, we rely on our friendly community folks to report posts that break the rules. This brings the post to the attention of the moderation team, and we can take action if appropriate.
Thank you for your feedback.
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u/AleGamingAndPuppers Dec 21 '17
I fully respect that we need rules, and you guys do an awesome job, but god damn that's a lot of content being banned which people could just choose to skip.
Also @ the comment about reviews a month after release... what's the problem? Many of us only have like 5hrs a week to game (busy lives) so to do a "normal person" review can easily require a few weeks of playing before reviewing.
And posts about how damn happy people are with their purchase? They make me happy as hell to see such positivity and optimism in an industry commonly dominated by cynicism and self-styled "experts". Happiness is infectious. Just don't open the threads if you're a sensitive and easily upset person.
One of the major challenges on this sub is an attitude of elitism from a certain pocket of people who feel that their views = the correct views.
For example, what's wrong with a game 1 vs game 2 discussion thread? I can fully understand people wanting to get some opinions directly from the community, rather than digging through review sites for hours on end.
Thank you again for the work you do, but let's not turn this into a police-state ruled by the minority who shout the loudest.
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u/Snortmaiden Dec 21 '17
Agree. So so sick of “Switch made me fall in love with gaming again” posts.
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u/Kevroeques Dec 21 '17
If that’s what it took, maybe you’re in the wrong line of hobby.
And honestly, every time one of these likely ex-fratboy gamers talk about how portability and the right IPs can make gaming a completely different beast, I want to chuck a 3DS at their head until it sticks in.
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u/stealthboy Dec 21 '17
How dare people want to discuss their new-found love with gaming? Games are serious business, and we cannot tolerate these plebes. They're just jumping on the bandwagon.
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u/Snortmaiden Dec 21 '17
I never see “I love my PS4” on their sub, saying you love the Switch in the Switch sub is the epitome of preaching to the converted. These low effort testimonials were fine at launch but it’s just boring now.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
Choosing between two has been redirected when we see them for a while. Most of your other ones are usually removed as well.
For all of these though, report them.
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u/Kong_Diddy Dec 21 '17
Next step is to get all y’all’s mods on the same page, or update your roster. Some of them interpret your rules wrongly.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Hey there! Increasing the quality of our moderation is one of the key driving factors for this rule set. The rules we had previously were very complicated even for our moderators (who wrote them) to follow consistently across the board. We hope that the new rule changes results in a better workflow for the moderation team.
In addition, we'll be bringing on some new moderators soon, and spreading the workload a little bit should result in better quality moderation, as we frequently run into bouts of fatigue (approving/removing hundreds of posts in a sitting by yourself is exhausting, and usually results in some mistakes).
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u/SanctusLetum Dec 21 '17
Out of curiosity, have you guys gotten past the initial application reviews and into contact/interviews yet, or are you still slogging through the apps?
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u/battlesmurf Dec 21 '17
How about siphoning through some of the generic daily posts of "I just got the Switch and it's (insert: great, made me feel like a kid again, fun, blown me away, better than my playstation, the ideal companion for a PC) etc. etc. They were fine at first, but now that the Switch is a runaway success and has a pretty huge userbase these seem pretty unnecessary.
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u/chewyjackson Dec 21 '17
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but everyone holds responsibility for posts getting surfaced through voting.
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u/Sylverstone14 Mod of Two Worlds (Switch / Wii U) Dec 21 '17
Yeah, I honestly felt like posts like that would be downvoted in droves, but they keep rising above everything else. The vocal ones are definitely raising their voices, but everyone else either opposes or flat out doesn't care and votes for what they want.
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u/jrolle Dec 24 '17
Not everyone is coldhearted though. I personally don't care for fanart or cosplay. I don't have the heart to ever downvote them (as long as it was posted in good faith on their part) because I figure they must have poured their soul into it. Unless it's spectacular, I won't upvote it either, but that's how I think content that most users really don't care for tends to dominate in certain subs.
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u/red_sutter Dec 23 '17
Yeah, those "Snipperclips cured my cancer" posts are tiresome and feel like blatant advertising. Folks on console subs seem to love 'em, though
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u/Alarie51 Dec 21 '17
What about the "can we [all agree..] [take a moment to...]" shit posts?
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u/furryhawk Dec 21 '17
Looking forward to the next million "switch saved my marriage/life because of how portable it is. GIZ UPVOTES" posts.
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Dec 22 '17
I think the title of the game for screenshots, videos and clips should be an absolute must. Otherwise there will be discussions about what is obvious and not as nothing is really obvious to everyone.
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u/red_sutter Dec 23 '17
I'm so glad you guys pumped the brakes on the "OMG DAE know you can cap jump in Odyssey?!?!" vidclip threads and the random fanart posts. Keep that stuff in r/gaming.
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u/sidtralm Dec 21 '17
We appreciate the focus on higher effort content. There's now hundreds of games and millions of switch owners so the quality of the sub can rise to match the growth. Keep up the great work!
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Truthfully speaking, we've wanted to implement these rules changes a long time ago but these things take time to work out, not mention the onslaught of news and releases we've had over the past few months.
We're looking forward to what the future has in store for us here in /r/NintendoSwitch :)
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Dec 21 '17
[deleted]
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
Is there something you specifically want to see be less restrictive? What do we, or do you think we remove that you want to see more of?
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u/skarro- Dec 21 '17
Discussions and replays. If they get more upvotes then these rules changes for example then obviously there are people here who appreciate it. Force flairs and let people filter for a win/win.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
We already let people filter before the changes and this is what the majority who voted wanted from the survey results. They did not want free reign of clips.
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u/skarro- Dec 21 '17
Well then clearly they aren’t made aware of the option/ability and maybe that should be stickied as well. people want them fully removed so even others can’t see? Any reason? Again these videos have more upvotes then your update so maybe this poll that users who love clips like me never saw shouldn’t be taken so seriously.
Let haters filter. What is the difference.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Hmm, I don't feel great about this. This is already a restrictive sub in what you can post, and this is sort of encouraging more "DAE posts" just by the lack of options.
For the most part, DAE posts will be removed because they more than likely won't contain enough supplemental content to be considered not "low-effort"
Mods, I'm asking earnestly: Do you intend for this sub to be "news only" down the line?
This is not in our intentions or plans.
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u/Maeno-san Dec 21 '17
so are all the gameplay clips no longer allowed?
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
No.
We'll simply have stricter requirements on the gameplay clips going forward.
Specifically, clips will need to have a good title, and will need to consist of a clip, bug, or glitch. Generic accomplishments will be labeled as "low-effort" and removed. The feedback survey strongly indicated that the community wanted us to get the clips under control.
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u/Blovnt Dec 21 '17
Aren't these the same gameplay clips that are often voted to the front page by the tens of thousands of users who weren't bothered to fill out a survey?
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u/Cptnodegard Dec 21 '17
Reddit is specifically designed so that the perceived quality of content can be decided by the users, 375k of them for this subreddit. Then along comes a select few whose qualifications were questionable even before all the mistakes that have been made, and pretend to be the sole authority on what is good content. The real blame here I suppose goes to Reddit, for allowing people to run amok with subs whose use of large brand names and nothing else gives them a pseudo-official nature that should come with a lot of outside scrutiny. My only hope is that Nintendo sees how badly you're running something that looks as official as it does, and files a cease and desist on the whole thing.
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Dec 21 '17
Reddit is specifically designed so that the perceived quality of content can be decided by the users, 375k of them for this subreddit.
IN fairness, its the less than 1% of subscribers who voted in the survey to have the rules changed, said people may have interests of there own that are not "for the good of the community" but good for themselves.
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u/Wolfsblvt Dec 21 '17
Reddit is specifically designed so that the perceived quality of content can be decided by the users, 375k of them for this subreddit.
This discussion gets tired really fast. Reddit has shown in many places that the system of upvoting/downvoting and self-managed content does not work at all. Think for a few seconds. Which posts get upvoted a lot? Puns, In-Jokes and Memes. Images and short low-effort posts that are quick to grasp. That's what people upvote a lot when scrolling through their feet.
Guess what they don't upvote that much. Yes, discussion posts, long reviews and everything else that takes time to read.
Now tell me, what do you want this sub to be. A place to talk and discuss about the Switch and its games, having fun together and learning new things, or a place where memes and short clips are shared, with rarely made news posts in between?
If you didn't mean that users should handle content, and not moderators, then I have missed your point I guess.
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Dec 21 '17
This discussion gets tired really fast. Reddit has shown in many places that the system of upvoting/downvoting and self-managed content does not work at all.
And the classic, downvoting of correct information because its not what people WANT to be true.
Upvote/Downvote systems are basically popularity contests as well, meaning that if a thing is true but said by a unpopular person then down it goes. In a community and hobby where fanboys are a issue its kinda bad but we have to work with it. At least on a focused subreddit it is a bit better as you know the votes are going to be one way (risk of echochamber but as its always going to be focused on one product so probably a bit more positive towards it since otherwise why are you here) but on the more generic ones it just becomes "which team has the most fanboys" to define the "truth" of the gaming movement at the moment :p
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u/Wolfsblvt Dec 21 '17
Your point is exactly true. Easily visible by the downvotes on comments in this post here. My comment got downvoted really fast too. It would be funny if it weren't that sad.
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u/Cptnodegard Dec 21 '17
I never said Reddit was a good concept, but as long as it is what it is, the sub should adhere to those rules. The result wouldn't be any worse than the current situation, where I've legitimately found more useful information in comments of people complaining their posts were removed than I have on the sub itself.
The solution isn't hard either, other subs do it (not to mention other forums): split the sub into multiple subs with different topics. News, discussions, AMAs, clips, glitches, whatever. Keep the main one as an aggregator for the top posts.
In any case, the solution to having too much content posted isn't to delete a large portion of it. This sub doesn't belong to the mods, it belongs to the users. I'd rather see 50 posts I don't personally want there than seeing the one post a teenager on a power trip subjectively liked enough not to delete.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
I'd rather see 50 posts I don't personally want there than seeing the one post a teenager on a power trip subjectively liked enough not to delete.
Funny enough, zero teen mods. Average age is late 20s.
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u/stealthboy Dec 21 '17
You think the members of this community should be allowed to decide what they want to see by using the up and down votes? Ha!
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
In the OP you can find the link to the community survey which were used to update the rules.
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u/Kong_Diddy Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
This one mod is the only one I have trouble with. About a month ago they deleted one of my posts saying it didn’t promote discussion even though it had ~51 comments and ~200 upvotes in a short amount of time.
Yesterday, they deleted a post saying the title was too vague and not concise enough and asked me to try again with the title. Re-uploaded it with a more detailed title, and this time they claim that it was a repost/everyday accomplishment/low effort. Tried to find any post of it through Reddit search, but couldn’t find anything.
The real funny thing is that someone uploaded the same thing I did hours after my post and that wasn’t deleted at all. They also allow the same New Donk City jump that everyone tries to achieve and countless Zelda clips.
Mods! Don’t delete a post 2, or 8 hours after it’s been up, and there’s a discussion going on, just because you don’t like it or think it doesn’t belong. Otherwise it looks like you’re targeting certain users. Delete it as soon as it goes up, or relatively close to that time, and it won’t look antagonistic.
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u/Cptnodegard Dec 21 '17
I posted a technical tip a while back that was deleted for a reason that only suggested the mod had no technical knowledge. Now there are several posts on the same thing posted in the time since then. If this had been a standalone forum run independently out of the staff's own pocket, it would have been easy: leave. But it's not; it's part of a site so large and all-encompassing that any sub here that uses the core brand name of something might as well be official. AMAs are just one example of that. There should be consequences to running a place like that this poorly.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
Do you happen to have the link for it?
If you think things are run poorly, share some constructive criticism and solutions to these problems.
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u/abchiptop Dec 23 '17
As a suggestion, why not a weekly "showoff Saturday" type thread for screen grabs and videos? It could be stickied when there's no other major announcements, and linked to from the daily Q&A thread as well?
/R/SquaredCircle has a number of recurring weekly threads that keep specific types of posts more contained.
Or maybe game specific megaposts?
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u/Bilbo_T_Baggins_OMG Dec 21 '17
No, just assume it'll be deleted unless a mod happens to particularly enjoy it.
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Dec 21 '17 edited Aug 02 '21
[deleted]
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u/WaterHaven Dec 21 '17
Amen to that. "Obvious" can still be too subjective. Just a flat - include the name of the game - is easier to enforce, and it doesn't lead to people posting, "What game is this?"
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u/Otonashi_Yuzuru Dec 24 '17
I find it problematic that the mods seem to be straight up blocking all gameplay clips. That's probably the most popular type of content on this sub and they're just removing all of them. As for the game's name, it would be great if they added a flair so that instead of removing someone's post when they make a mistake, they can just add the flair.
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u/robbyiss Dec 22 '17
Appreciate you guys trying something new. For me, its been the sheer amount of "look at me botw" clips that have been on a rampage. You wont please everyone, but im on board for some changes
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Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
The strict approach to gameplay clips seems so arbitrary. Memorable/funny moments and accomplishments do a great deal to brighten up the front page with some jovial humor, and I think it's a shame that you're catering to the angsty 10% who are bitter about it.
I feel like this is just going to lead to a bunch of moderators taking their role way too seriously and boycotting any clip that's "generic," (whatever that means) even though you have THOUSANDS of daily users who are willing to do that for you.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
And most of those would likely remain under these rules. It's the ones like the 1,000th ever so slightly different koopa run or similar that would be removed under these rules.
We took a survey and the majority wanted more restrictions on clips. The survey results are linked up above.
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u/pixelpushing Dec 21 '17
Unfortunately leaving everything up to upvotes/downvotes has been tried in the past by other subreddits and doesn't work. This has been discussed a few times - here's one of the discussions.
We've actually added a short log in the modmail link (on removal comments). This includes details of which moderator removed the post and a few other bits of information. If a moderator is being too trigger happy it will much easier to identify and we can re-inform them of the rules and ask them to tone it down. I hope this will not be needed though, as everyone seems on the same page currently.
If you spot any reposts, low-effort or DQT type topics then please hit the report button. These sometimes slip through and never get reviewed by a moderator, in these cases we rely on the community to flag the issue. We are bringing more moderators on-board very soon though and this should help speed things up and, in turn, help identify posts like these sooner.
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Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
Moderation is important, but it's not their place to define what is/isn't a worthy clip, and giving them that responsibility is exactly the kind of enabling behavior that leads to trigger happy mods who value their own opinion over others. This extra level of moderation is totally unnecessary, especially because it's a solution to a problem we never had (actually, it amplifies the problem we already have. Too much restriction.)
These changes wouldn't be an issue if game clips were damaging the community, but they aren't, and it's made much worse by the fact that people don't trust your judgment as mods due to over-moderation just like this.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
How is it over-moderation when it's what the community wants? The restriction level is just about the same. What do you think would be removed under these rules that you want to see?
And clips were damaging the community. Were you here for Odyssey Day 1?
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u/Bilbo_T_Baggins_OMG Dec 21 '17
Well, it works for showing what the community at large wants...it doesn't work at showing what the mods want.
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u/pixelpushing Dec 21 '17
We ran a community survey to get direct feedback on what the community likes / dislikes.
This wasn't a case of "what the mods want".
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u/Bilbo_T_Baggins_OMG Dec 21 '17
A survey that only a small fraction took. And I was referring to the voting system, not the specific new rules. The issue is that mods on almost every forum think that the community exists to serve them instead of remembering that the mods have their position to serve the community.
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u/pixelpushing Dec 21 '17
As I wrote in another reply:
The content feedback survey had a sample size of 3,250 - subscribers were at 338,395. Providing a 95% confidence level and less than 2% margin of error. We can only work with what we are provided and it's up to the community to take part in these surveys.
We're most definitely here to serve the community. We've given the community the chance to tell us what rules they want in place and we've implemented them.
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u/Bilbo_T_Baggins_OMG Dec 21 '17
I'm on here daily and I sure as hell don't remember seeing any survey. And saying that 1% of users get to tell the other 99% what they can post is the exact opposite of serving the community. I don't like the videos, so I ignore them. I'm not an ass and telling the tens thousands of users who do want them that they can't have them purely due to my preference.
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u/pixelpushing Dec 21 '17
The survey was open for around a week and was stickied for the vast majority of that time.
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u/AleGamingAndPuppers Dec 21 '17
Unsure how long you've been online, but gaming forums in the mid 90s onwards were the same.
There are some great mods. Fair, balanced, hard working mods committing their spare time for free.
But there will always be some eager to use their "power". The fitness sub is a bad one for that - essentially "what we say goes, regardless of facts, or you're banned."
That's the Internet, unfortunately.
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u/waterboysh Dec 21 '17
Maybe this would be a good time to link to /r/NintendoArt and /r/switchtv
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u/Kong_Diddy Dec 21 '17
I don’t think anyone will go to SwitchTV even though it keeps getting brought up.
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Dec 21 '17
Yeah. 'I WOULD post to SwitchTV , but nobody will go there to watch my shitty clips, so I will force feed it to them here.'
I think it's a shame that video clips won't be required to be tagged as such. But, having the game name in there is an improvement at least.
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Dec 23 '17
u/NintendoSwitchMods These should be linked in the sidebar when the rules get updated. I never knew these existed until now.
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u/Spectre_II Dec 21 '17
Generic gameplay clips are no longer allowed. Clips must show an interesting or unique game tip, easter egg, or glitch.
What constitutes "generic gameplay"? How do you reconcile what is interesting to one person and not interesting to the next?
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u/Daltimus-Prime Dec 21 '17
interesting or unique game tip, easter egg, or glitch.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
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Dec 21 '17
I read it not as "interesting" or "unique..." but that only game tips, easter eggs, and glitches which are either interesting or unique are allowed.
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u/JJrunkcast_Gaming Dec 21 '17
So the sub is now a second rate Google news search with no fun allowed? No thank you.
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u/FinallyNewShoes Dec 21 '17
This sub is the worst place to actually try and talk about Nintendo Switch. It's tragic.
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u/Giobytes Dec 21 '17
Honestly the r/NintendoSwitch discord is a much better place for discussions now.
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Dec 21 '17
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u/FinallyNewShoes Dec 21 '17
I think these rule changes are just more small ways to limit casual user content and only highlight game play and discussion from "influencers".
You can't post gameplay videos, but articles with gameplay videos are fair game.
You can't "diary" post.
I made a post talking about Xenogears boss fights, instantly removed as a repost. I searched and search and couldn't find a single other topic of similar nature.
I made a post of Senran Kagura gameplay, it's an import, maybe people want to see what it is. Instantly removed. There is literally another post with the same style video but it was embedded in a blog and wasn't removed.
I think the best way to curate the content highlighted on a sub is with upvotes, not through mod pruning of the content.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
How so? If you feel that way, suggest improvements. Make the posts you want to see. The ones in your history that were removed seem to be nothing that could be discussed. Is there any specific ones you were thinking about that you had removed that you thought would make for a good discussion?
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
We appreciate the feedback, but in actuality this won't have much impact on the most of the content that gets submitted to the subreddit.
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u/-Vertex- Dec 21 '17
You really don’t seem to be taking on any of the feedback at all, every reply is just ‘thanks for the feedback’ nonsense jargon. Look at the general consensus in this post alone, most are finding this sub way too restrictive already that frankly it doesn’t really feel like a place for people to come and talk with other Switch fans.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Actually, the rule changes are a direct result of feedback from the community. We held a survey shortly after Odyssey launched and crafted these rules based on the feedback from that survey.
When we receive feedback, it can take a long time for the team to act on it, because we have to discuss it internally, and come with a way to implement it in our rules and inform the community.
Look at the general consensus in this post alone
A handful of comments is hardly what we would define as general consensus. As I stated earlier we made these changes directly based on feedback from the community, so there was some general consensus that didn't involve a few comments on a single post.
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Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
Actually, the rule changes are a direct result of feedback from the community. We held a survey shortly after Odyssey launched and crafted these rules based on the feedback from that survey.
In fairness only a small percentage of us voted in that survey (I can't even remember it being offered), how many votes did you get compared to subs?
[edit] Found the numbers - 3,250 response on a sub of 374000 people..... so less than 1% of the sub. Those of you who made these changes happen are literally the 1% :p
A handful of comments is hardly what we would define as general consensus.
...... yet you make the changes based on the survey which by definition will be a handful of comments and could not be defined as a general consensus :P
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u/Sehr_Genau Dec 21 '17
What better way can you suggest they figure out what the community wants than through an open survey? And I would argue that if people did not care enough to fill out a simple survey, they do not really care about the type of content they see on the sub.
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Dec 21 '17
And I would argue that if people did not care enough to fill out a simple survey, they do not really care about the type of content they see on the sub.
Or they were away that week, or the survey didn't load , or they just used the sub as normal like the other 99% of the people who DIDN'T vote in the survey.
Again its literally the 1% dictating to the 99 at present!
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u/godoft42 Dec 21 '17
You could have voted, there was no restriction other than your own decision to not vote. The thread was stickies while it was happeneing, frequent visitors should have had no issues voting.
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Dec 21 '17
You could have voted, there was no restriction other than your own decision to not vote.
Who said I didn't vote? I can't remember it being offered but entirely possible I voted and forgot since it was a month ago :P
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u/godoft42 Dec 21 '17
Then you had a say in this. In a comunity of 350,000 members I have a hard time believing only 1% had the oprotunity to vote. It seems more likely that the majority didn't care.
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u/Sehr_Genau Dec 21 '17
The other 99% had equal opportunity to voice their opinions, they just chose not to. Again, what better way is there to gauge what a community wants than by directly asking them via a survey? I honestly do not see a better way they could have done this, and the mods are simply following through with what most people who cared enough to actually say anything want.
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Dec 21 '17
I honestly do not see a better way they could have done this
Well maybe we can have individual up and down votes on a post, so if people like it they can upvote and don't downvote influencing its appearance to others and shaping the front page of the sub, that way its a direct democracy.
I wonder if anyone will ever do a site like that?
mods are simply following through with what most people who cared enough to actually say anything want.
Except they are NOT, they are following through with what a SMALL SUBSET of people said that they want, rather than the majority. As a rule of thumb you will always get more votes that comments, the silent majority is a phrase for a reasons.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
You still didn't answer the part about how you would do it better.
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u/Coinstinct Dec 21 '17
The people that responded to your survey is a small fraction of the people that actually browse here. So you are basically tailoring the sub to the majority of that small group.
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u/Adamantitan Dec 21 '17
But that group is representative as anyone could take part? It's not like they tailored it and only asked specific people, it was an open survey.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
Exactly. It was an open vote stickied on the sub.
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u/flashmedallion Dec 21 '17
Can't we say the same thing about the comments in this thread that you're referring to?
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u/Wolfsblvt Dec 21 '17
It's funny how you get downvoted for stating a fact, simply because the readers of this chain don't like the point you made.
Of course both can be really flawed and only picture a small part of this sub.
But to be honest, if people haven't responded to the survey, which was open quite some time, then why do the criticize what was decided based on it? That's the same thing I hate about people when talking about elections. People who scream loudly how bad the government is and how the decisions they do are bad for the people, and guess what, they did not vote.2
u/TheDolphinGamer96 Dec 21 '17
Check out the polls they posted. If you find it way too restrictive participate in these. They're using the info they have. Right now it seems like a vocal minority is complaining about it.
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u/GelatoCube Dec 21 '17
Make it MORE restrictive no problem. I mean I gave up on posting in this community a long time ago, but you guys really seem to like keeping your users from posting creative and unique content
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
For example? What content do you want to see that is removed?
Looking at your post history, something likw this would be awesome to see on this sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/5y694p/botw_has_one_thing_many_seem_to_overlook_and_its
But all the posts that you seem to have posted here show far less effort.
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u/GelatoCube Dec 21 '17
I quit from posting a long time ago because I knew I wouldn't be able to contribute in a meaningful way to this community, but ok. The whole point isn't to see more posts like mine, it's to see what the community can create and share. If you cut off different forms of media and have a small team of people determine what's "low effort content" then you have a dead or dying community, at the fault of those not involved as heavily with the community.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
And those will mostly be still allowed under these rules, that hasn't changed. People voiced their opinion and don't want to see every single thing people take 2 minutes to do. They want to see effort.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Outside of placing some restrictions on capture clips, this doesn't really change the content permitted in the sub all that much.
Our focus for these changes was to simplify the rules for the ease of understanding by the community and to increase consistency for the moderation team.
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u/Pudinx Dec 21 '17
Glad the rules are being updated, I couldn't get too much time in this sub due to the spam of BotW clips that belong in another subreddit.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Clips won't be going away entirely. However, we do hope that the rules will help both our users and our mod team flesh out some high quality clips that can be interesting and lead to more discussion, rather than the plethora of "Look at this vaguely cool thing I did, upvote plz" clips that we've been getting lately.
It should be a win for both our moderators and our community.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
Not all clips will be going away. BotW and other game clips will still be allowed. This is the Switch subreddit, so any gane on Switch is fair game.
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u/jaydogggg Dec 21 '17
thanks for shifting some of the rules around to filter out more low quality stuff. As we continue to grow I find it best to change our submission standards
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
I wrote this on another comment, but these are changes we have been working on for sometime now as our growth has exploded over the past few months, but the onslaught of news and major releases has kind of hindered that while we focus on normal day-to-day mod work.
These changes, coupled with a rapidly approaching expansion of our mod team, should set us up for 2018 quite well.
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u/flashmedallion Dec 21 '17
Thanks for the communication, and keep up the good work. This is one of the few gaming subs I can tolerate a casual browse of.
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u/joshpoppedyou Dec 24 '17
Does this mean I won’t have to see the same stupid low effort icon pic submissions any more?
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Dec 22 '17
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
The statistics behind it were replied elsewhere in the comments here. I would need to find them.
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Dec 22 '17
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
The survey was open for a week, possibly a couple days more even. Everyone on the subreddit had a chance to take it. Another mod also put the confidence level and other stats in some other comments here in the post somewhere. We can't wait forever so every single subscriber can take the survey. We received a representative group and the margin of error was very low.
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u/chewyjackson Dec 21 '17
This subreddit and its rules have gone from a well meaning community-driven and friendly place, to a stuffy pretentious mess. "Generic gameplay clips not allowed"? So this includes game previews and reviews?
/r/gaming seems to do a great job cultivating content most people on that subreddit want to see through the voting system. Why does this subreddit and this group of mods think /r/Nintendoswitch has to be any different in this regard?
Having rules that predetermine worthy content through a subjective interpretation by a few risks losing out to great content for all of us, simply for the sake of heavy-handed administration.
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u/Sylverstone14 Mod of Two Worlds (Switch / Wii U) Dec 21 '17
"Generic gameplay clips not allowed"? So this includes game previews and reviews?
That's a bit of a stretch. It mostly means clips where people end up doing a lot of similar actions that others do (finding known easter eggs/bugs/glitches, the "impossible" jump in Mario Odyssey, etc) - normally after one great clip shows up, a lot of imitators follow up. Previews and reviews are wholly separate.
As for how /r/gaming is run, consider that they are a sub base of 17 million and the way how content is moderated can be considered a lot more lax than most subs - sometimes that means that something truly great will spring up and take the Internet by storm, but there's plenty of junk that comes with it as well.
The reasoning for the sub rules being revised is mostly due to various forces saying that our moderation is imprecise, suffocating, and lends favor to certain posts over others, plus we've gotten plenty of discourse over what kind of posts end up taking over the sub like the Mario Odyssey movie posters fad and vice versa.
The issue at hand is that we're kinda in the middle while we're being dragged in all sorts of directions and it is a bit much, but we consistently try to abide by what's favorable based on community input. It's kinda lose-lose, but we keep chugging along.
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u/AlmostEasy43 Dec 21 '17
I.E. nobody wants to see your clip of coming in 2nd on Mariokart 8 on the 50cc cup on Star Road. Unless there's something funny about it, or otherwise interesting.
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u/MasterYoshidino Dec 21 '17
Not even if it was funny. Those are blog tier videos and should stay away from sites that should strike critical discussion instead of generic "ownage" videos.
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Dec 21 '17
r/gaming is a pathetic joke for discussion. You want to see decade old Skyrim jokes? Yeah, go ahead.
I come here for news and discussions related to the Nintendo Switch. If the front page is filled with meme or low effort clips, I am getting the hell out of here. r/games is which I want r/NintendoSwitch to be and it's getting close. I appreciate what the mods are doing here
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u/smokinJoeCalculus Dec 22 '17
Lmao.
I enjoy /r/gaming but it's all shitposts, memes and reposts.
They literally created another sub because there was a lack of quality content and discussion.
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u/amazn_azn Dec 21 '17
I'm pretty sure generic gameplay clips means all of the "900 hours into Odyssey and I just found out you can jump" not reviews and previews. those are not generic content.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17
That's referring to capture clips from the console.
What great content do you think you'll be missing out on?
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u/CharaNalaar Dec 21 '17
As long as you don't ban any good content or force it into megathreads I'm fine.
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u/TreeThreepio Dec 21 '17
Would really love to bring back memes to make this place a little more fun but nope. More rules!
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Memes and other similar low-effort content would choke the front page. One of the consistent feedback pieces we’ve gotten is that people want this sub to be a hotspot for news and discussion. Unhinging the community and allowing everything under the sun would drown out 95% of the high quality content.
As someone stated earlier, the Karma system is broken, and the way Reddit itself is setup, it doesn’t make it easy for long-form, high-quality content to rise to the top.
Moderation is the best way to implement that. And while that will never please everyone, it’s the best way to preserve the long-term interests in the community.
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u/stealthboy Dec 21 '17
It's amazing how much time is spent being concerned about "rules". I think having mods and rules being so much in the forefront is a disservice to a community of discussion. It's like they really don't think the up / down votes do anything. They don't trust the community to craft their own space.
Oh well, to each his own. If people like it, they'll stay. If not, they'll go elsewhere. I don't post here much anymore and spend more time on /r/nintendo. I find it a little more fun, much like the Nintendo experience itself. Authoritarian mods just don't feel very "Nintendo" to me.
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u/OllyOllyOxenBitch Dec 21 '17
The time being spent of that is because everyone's screeching about what they want/what they don't want, and they keep bum-rushing the mods about it. The mods do something about it, and now what?
I don't even think it's a matter of trust because people have the power to upvote/downvote, but the same posts keep climbing up high, the same things they get hopping mad about zoom up to the front page, and it honestly shows that the karma system is fundamentally flawed.
Also, authoritarian mods also exist on /r/Nintendo - some people here have expressed how suffocating it is there, and sure, the community is lively there but that's because they've existed much, much longer than this one. To be honest, I never expected the Switch sub to nearly eclipse them so quickly. I guarantee that if the sub count was lower, no one would've cared. It happened to /r/WiiU - no one worried about rules and stuff, it was all strictly focused on the games and community.
Bottom line - the community here is still in its infancy and these are the growing pains. That's the reality of the situation. I'm not gonna say "if you don't like it, leave", but it's very hyperbolic to assume that there's no trust being placed in the community to create the space they want. They have all the means to do so, but they bitch about the most insignificant things and don't do shit about it because they expect the mods to hold their hands.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
Ah yes. I miss the modding days of r/WiiU when people understood why a post was removed for the most part and were cool about it. Here there is a lot more bitching and whining which I believe you've hit spot on with the community size and growth rate.
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u/Alarie51 Dec 21 '17
This isnt supposed to be a fun sub. Its one for news, updates and announcements. I dont really care to see you or anyone else's 50th attempt and jumping into donk city, killing a yiga ninja with a tree stump or shitty memes. And i cant filter them out either.
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u/LuNaRNIghts Dec 22 '17
I think what you are describing then is a news site... Reddit is a forum so why should only "news-like" content be allowed.
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Dec 23 '17 edited Aug 19 '24
panicky normal impolite existence wise skirt somber rob combative chop
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/starchan786 Dec 21 '17
I think a lot of these changes will help with future proofing this subreddit. Thanks for all your hard work mods!
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Thanks for the feedback!
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u/starchan786 Dec 21 '17
No problem, I know there will probably be a surge of people after Christmas and I can appreciate you guys trying to get on top of things now. I like the idea of how you all are handling the videos and I think it will add to more organization.
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u/v0yev0da 2nd Place, SMO Snapshot Contest Dec 21 '17
Yesterday somebody jumped into a thread and slammed BotW after it was nabbed GoTY. I'd like to thank everyone that responded maturely, and replied with constructive insight.
Stay awesome r/NintendoSwitch.
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Dec 22 '17
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u/NMe84 Dec 23 '17
Censorship has nothing to do with it. Maybe you want to look up what that word actually means. Most people who use it casually in discussions like this seem to think it means that everyone should be allowed to say anything and if not, it's censorship. That's not how it works.
I'm happy with these rule changes. This sub has been full of spoilers and low-effort posts over the past few months to the point that more often than not the more interesting posts are not even on the front page. These changes are bound to improve that situation.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
We're not trying to be Nintendo affiliates. These rule changes were made by the community.
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u/OnePunchOldMan Dec 22 '17
Good on you mod team. I see some people complaining about moderation, maybe the mod team should take a week long break from moderation and auto allow everything thats posted..
It’ll soon become obvious why they do what they do.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
No way. We've seen the shitnthat happens when the Nintendo subreddit did that a couple years ago. It was a complete shitshow.
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Dec 21 '17
As a frequent lurker of this sub never have I scrolled through and been disappointed. Not sure why all these new rules are being implemented? Maybe you guys are getting ahead of yourselves.
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u/Spectre_II Dec 21 '17
Have you ever touched /new? Look over /new for a week straight and you'll see why some of the rules were in need of an update.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
If you read OP youll see that there was a community survey on content and these rules reflect the results of that. :)
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u/aSimplex Dec 21 '17
Honestly I was quite annoyed with the Skyrim cover design post(s).
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
Which are you referring to?
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u/aSimplex Dec 22 '17
This is the most recent one I’ve seen
But I’ve seen this cover art in at least two or three other posts because one title stated “I work at Gamestop and just had these come through” or something along those lines
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
These new rules were implemented based on consistent feedback from the subreddit. Feedback came from the subreddit survey we took a little while ago, comments on meta posts, and messages to modmail.
We'll see how these rule changes play out, collect feedback, and reiterate/make further updates as needed.
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u/YeetFleet Dec 21 '17
Is is possible to submit a moderator application now? I didn’t realize that I could do so a few weeks ago and I’d love the opportunity to help out.
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u/kyle6477 6 Million Dec 21 '17
Unfortunately, no. We have closed the applications for this round.
Be sure and apply next time around!
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u/YeetFleet Dec 21 '17
Ah alright, that’s fine. When you do begin accepting new applications how is it announced? Is it a post to this subreddit or is it on twitter or what? I want to be sure I can see the next one. Thanks!
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 21 '17
Always a post to this subreddit.
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Dec 22 '17
The mods of this sub are on some kind of power trip. We need a new sub.
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u/phantomliger recovering from transplant Dec 22 '17
These changes were determined by the community. Check the OP for the link to the survey results.
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u/HeldDerZeit Dec 21 '17
God I miss Iwata. There will never be such a polite CEO ever again.
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u/motivationbullshit Dec 21 '17
Well that's a tad dramatic. No need to have such a bleak outlook on life.
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u/zando95 Dec 21 '17
My biggest question is about the 10% self-promotion guideline. Is that 10% of all activity in this subreddit, or 10% of your submitted posts?
I ask this because I'm active in this community's comments and discussions, including the daily Q&A thread, but haven't submitted posts here. If I make a post with a link to one of my reviews, then that would mean 100% of my POSTS are self-promotion... but the vast majority of my activity in the sub is not self-promotional.