TotalHalibut aka TotalBiscuit aka The Cynical Brit

The problem is that the mod system in Reddit means the senior mod can dismiss anything the others mentioned and do what he wants. As another mod mentioned in a thread concerning this "controversy", democracy does not exists with senior moderators.

There is also that the /r/games senior mod going on a massive deleting spree and saying reasons that contradict ther previous actions is hardly news. I have been hanging on the subreddit for a while.

Of course democracy doesn't exist in the subreddit. It doesn't exist in any subreddit. Or any online community, for that matter. Deciding stuff is what the moderators are there for. And, with multiple modarators, one of them is the one calling the shots.

Not allowing Total Biscuit discussions in r/games is not particularly unreasonable. TB is not actually an industry figure, he is a critic, so discussing his health is not all that on topic. Sure, they allowed this subject before, but the fact that it can back again might be the reason for the change of policy. They don't want a new thread every time there is an update on TB's health, nor they want to open a similar precedent for every other popular critic or lets player.

That whole thing is just r/games moderators taking a moderator decision. That is their job. It is was badly handled and poorly communicated, but it wasn't anything outrageous.

edited 16th Oct '15 3:10:17 AM by Heatth

You do get online communities that at least largely run their moderating democratically. It's only the top mod that actually has more power, there's no indication that it's the sub reddit founder that's doing this, it's simply a mod that has been around longer. Normally seniority doesn't come with a veto, it's only being the founder/owner that gives you that right.

I don't understand your point. What I was saying is that r/games not being a democracy is not particularly surprising. Basically no large organization is one. That they organize themselves in a differently than most subreddits is irrelevant. They have set up an hierarchy beyond just the founder is irrelevant.

I mean, it is not even like there was a single modder who went behind everyones back messing stuff. They all met and discussed this, apparently. Eventually they had to come to a conclusion and said conclusion favored those who have been around longer. Seems practical to me. The rest of the mods seems to be fine with it too. It is just the way they menage the subreddit.

The problem with r/games is how inconsistent it is. The moderation team flip flops so fast between decisions it is hilarious. Jew Mario was okay, Ryan Davis was okay, Andrew Ryoon was okay, a music composer at Larian who was not that big was okay. The inconsistency is that those are A-Okay but the top Steam Curator, Starcraft E-sports announcer and sponsor of E-Sports team Axiom is suddenly not allowed.

"don't think it has to do with the life event, but the "Non-industry figure" part. Ryan didnt develop games or anything (Not that I know of...) he reviewed video games just like TB, so why is his life changing news any different?" A mod said in a thread concerning the issue in the Total Biscuit subreddit. Rubber_Duckie I belive.

Also two videos by Total Biscuit on said subreddit have been removed by a mod for some reason. Which does not help.

edited 16th Oct '15 3:56:25 AM by YoKab

As one of the mods said, sometimes things split thorough. And a change in policy might have happened between this stuff (specially since TB would have more impact in the subreddit than any of those). I mean, at worse this was bad moderation on that part. They should have communicated better and be more consistent. But it is hardly something outrageous. Deleting off topic threads is still part of the moderators job.

Btw, here one thread with a mod talking about the issue. The one that said the democracy thing. Notice how said moderator is not particularly angry or frustrated. At most a bit confused. But they seem have totally accepted the top decision. It is not like the mod team didn't discuss the issue.

PS:Did you just quote someone without saying it is a quote and without taking in account the context? For real?

edited 16th Oct '15 3:42:22 AM by Heatth

Apologies for the late quoting, editing is a pain on phones and I was in a bit of a hurry.

As it is I feel like this is mostly due to lack of outside communication and/or bad timing due to how the mod team there is known for flip flopping fast between decisions. I cannot say much as I have no contacts, but I feel like this is the logical assumption to take at the moment.

edited 16th Oct '15 4:39:05 AM by YoKab

Okay.

Anyway, now look at all the rest of the posts by said moderator (link in my previous post). They are not angry, they are not outraged. They discussed it with the team and accepted the decision. Here what he have to say about the senior mod who had the final say:

The only people who are up to arms are the ones that were not there. The ones who just assumed obscure reasons for why the r/games mod might have a hate bone for TB. But the mod team includes someone who is clearly supportive of TB, and they don't think there was anything shady going on, just different people having different opinions.

edited 16th Oct '15 4:02:05 AM by Heatth

Apparently this stuff made it to /r/subredditdrama... Clearly this is not what John Bain wanted to happen when sharing the news. The only that will worry me for real is TB having some sort of Creator Breakdown in his current state.

Honestly; I don't know. This could be due to bad moderation, but of course the mods will not act or say anything about being outraged no matter what. And apparently all mentions of TB on the Axiom thread have been removed.

I don't know, maybe after this whole deal cools down we will get something straight. Just my two cents.

edited 16th Oct '15 5:19:33 AM by YoKab

I would argue the breakdown happened a while ago, but that's getting into a topic we're not allowed tgo discuss here.

r/dota2 has a thread up.

Reddit is blocked from his house, he should know nothing about all of it.

That's the thing, the conclusion was that the favoured the post being allowed, but one person got to override that conclusion.

I think a lot of the annoyance is coming from people who never realised that it wasn't a democracy, that one mod can overrule all the other mods and run the place however he/she likes. People don't complain about TB tropes not being a democracy because it's always been clearly stated that it's not and never has been.

I think it also doesn't help that the mod team has failed to make a public statement about it. If the topic isn't allowed then explain why in a post for people so that they can understand, don't go deleting all posts about it, all threads about what's happening, and all comments in other threads (like the axiom one) that say people feel bad about what's happening to him.

If a topic is banned but people want it then tell them why it's banned and allow them to express their emotions over the banning of the topic, don't just try and sweep the entire thing under the rug.

Also a final thing that doesn't help is that him not being a prominent figure is a very weird statement, yes he's press, but he's the number 1 gaming critic on both Steam and youtube, he's an esports team owner, an esports caster, a voice actor, a prominent L Per, a prominent streamer and the runner of one of the biggest gaming podcasts out there.

edited 16th Oct '15 7:03:33 AM by Silasw

Regarding the r/games stuff, I agree that too many people have the false notion that the Internet, especially sites like Reddit, are more democratic than they really are. However, there's two things to consider:

First, while TB isn't an industry figure, he is very big when it comes to both gaming critique and gaming journalism. Look back at Totemic Hero's post about the people throwing support. So I don't think it's unreasonable that TB only having a few years to live would be considered big news.

Second, there have been cases of Reddit mods going power-hungry and using their authority for the sake of personal biases/vendettas (look up "banned from r/planetside" for one of the most egregious of cases). I'm reading through Duckie's responses in that link, and while he makes it clear that the senior mod isn't being a dick it's also very apparent that Duckie and the other mods have no choice but to play along. And with the mod's intentions being kept under wraps people are naturally going to assume the worst.

There were more discussion after that, and the other mods accepted that. I mean, sure, maybe said mods didn't have much option, but Duckie himself doesn't seem much resentful. He got out ranked and he accepts that.

Btw, note that the senior mod is not the sole person supporting the decision to remove the thread. The first person to put out that proposal (i.e. "Mod 1") was someone else entirely. There could be more for all we know, Duckie wasn't very specific. Sure, the "senior mod" was the one to override the previous discussion, but he wasn't the only one defending his position.

That kind of thing is hard, though. The mods clearly failed big time in comunication, but it is not that simple. The topic got deleted because it is off topic, making a post to explain why would just invite said off topic discussion. The best course might have been to lock the thread instead of deleting, but even then there would be people complaining they don't have the option to post their opinion.

It is not that weird. He is just press. If they want to make a cut-off point on what counts as part of the industry, TB would probably be outside. The problem with "he is big" is that this is a relative. If Jim Sterling got cancer, would he be "big enough"? As long as the mods stand on the ground and prevent any personal posts about gaming media people from now on, it makes perfect sense to me.

The senior mod's intention was made public: he judged TB to not be a prominent industry figure. There are other people who are speculating about a secret reason, but that is pure baseless speculation. No one involved hinted at anything like that.

edited 16th Oct '15 7:27:43 AM by Heatth

Ah, right. Missed that bit. Fair enough, I suppose.

I mean, there is valid criticism against the decision. This sort of topic have been allowed before, including concerning TB's health. Still, the logic of the decision is valid. For all I know the senior mod is just trying to put order in the house and establishing limits. Very poor timing, sure, but not completely unreasonable.

The thing is, all people calling fool are people who have no idea what gone on. The one mod who is explicitly in favor of Total Biscuit and who voted in favor of allowing the thread doesn't seem to think there is anything shoddy going on, so it seems out of line for outsiders to complain on their behalf.

Also, this whole thing seems to be the start of a witch hunt, which sucks. It is no wonder r/games is not revealing the name of the mods responsible for that decision.

edited 16th Oct '15 9:45:21 AM by Heatth

edited 16th Oct '15 10:14:35 AM by CobraPrime

Moving on to other stuff...

TotalBiscuit likes a game that recently came out! It is that game called Secret Ponchos which amassed some hype a while ago and quietly got a bit down.

He also streamed it on Twitch. I wonder if he will do a WTF Is... on it.

edited 16th Oct '15 1:26:34 PM by YoKab

Classy response from the /r gaming thread's moderation team about the news about Mr. Bain. Very classy. An example of how to win friends and influence people, no mistake about that. Certainly very principled and high-minded reaction from them.

Oh wait, it isn't Opposite Day. Oops.

r/gaming is one of the less tolerable subreddits anyway. A lot of comments on posts there are just "r/shitpost" or fanboying or hating on games.

I missed that. What they said?

Wasn't that the reason r/games was founded to begin with? Because some people wanted aw more controlled board?

It was more the general tone of the decision. The guy's not relevant to gaming? Aye, fucking right. In what planet? Zog? Plus it's kinda personal to me. Cancer's hit my family so I know something of what is going on in his and his friends families. And I see the decision to try to bury discussion and delete forum debate as being taken due to purely petty personal reasons by whatever person made it.

It's no wonder the mod is being called out on it from lots of various quarters.

No one ever said Total Biscuit was not relevant to gaming. What was said is that he is not relevant enough to the industry to warrant a whole thread about his personal health. There do need to be limits about what is relevant or not in a subreddit, and the mods decided this was a good cut off place.

I mean, that is not an absurd opinion. TB is a very popular critic, but that is about it. His is a bigger influence on the the internet users than on the gaming industry itself. His influence there is of second hand at best. I don't think many developers actually look at his work when deciding what to do at their games, nor do I think he was an inspiration to anybody actually working there. TB is no Iwata, no matter what some insane people claim (really I've seem people saying he is more well known and influential than the former memetic CEO of Nintendo). Frankly, this whole discussion seems too much like fanboys overstating their idol's importance.

I don't necessarily agree with the decision. At very last, it was poorly managed. But I do find ridiculous the outrage. That is precisely the sort of thing the mods are supposed to do. That is the sort of decision they are supposed to make.

There's still no explanation for the deleting of comments expressing sorrow at his cancer when it's come up in other threads. Likewise the fact that they deleted all threads about the issue comes across as very shady. Unless they have a "no meta" rule then while topics about TB's cancer might not be relevant, topic's about if topics about TB's cancer should be allowed, are relevant.

Likewise no answer has been given for the long list of other press figures of less relevance that there have been topics about, they only explained about the previous topic about TB's health.

They do, in fact, have a no meta rule, as far I can tell. All threads are supposed to be about games. As for why deleting comments of the situation in other topics, I've heard some people were raiding the subreddit by downvoting every non TB related post and posting about him everywhere, regardless of being on topic or not, which means the mods need to counter attack and remove TB related posts.

And, yes, they did give answer for why other similar topics were allowed before. Some of them were from years ago (the most quoted one is 2 years old), so things have changed since then. Another explanation given is that not all mods interpreted the rules equally. The same way some mods restored the TB topic before being overruled, some mods were lenient in the past. Some mods noticed that and decided to enforce the rules more strictly now. Bad timing, probably, but understandable. At some time they would need to do that, if they actually want to enforce the rules and the more the wait, the harder it is to do.]

Anyway, why the fuck are people looking for some conspiracy behind this? Really, what the hell? Why being so bent on the mods being liars and having a secret agenda against TB? The main reason we know about the behind scenes stuff is because Duckie, a mod, come forth to explain. He clearly stated his position, including that he was absolutely in favor of alloying TB topics. He also said that the Senior Mod was absolutely not being a dick about it. That he presented his reasons clearly and, although not all mods agreed, they understood and accepted. The people who actually there behind the scenes don't think there is anything weird going on, so why on Earth assume there is a conspiracy going on?

Really, the whole thing just seems like clumsy organization to me. The rules are not well explained and not even the mods all agree, which results on an uneven enforcements of said rules. The Senior Mod probably noticed that and picked now, of all times, to be stricter and to explain his reasoning to the other mods. The moderation in r/games is incompetent, but that doesn't mean it have a secret hate for TB for some reason. That is just insane.

edited 17th Oct '15 5:55:08 AM by Heatth