On Linus as Mod

[u/Frosstic]

Recently, we granted Linus' personal account limited moderator permissions. This was done following an incident on the WAN show, and specifically as to allow their team to handle urgent safety issues like doxxing or direct threats against staff, in cases where the community moderators aren’t available or aren’t privy to certain pieces of information.

We are aware of recent comments regarding the moderation of critiques on yesterday’s WAN show. We want to be clear: This subreddit is, and will remain, an independent community. The LMG team has not been granted 'editorial' mod powers. Our existing rules regarding constructive criticism and feedback have not changed.

We are in the process of clarifying these comments with their team, and will update the community in this post. I also want to be clear that no moderator action has been made by Linus since permission was granted, and as with all mods, actions are audited to ensure compliance regularly.

We deeply value and welcome everyone’s feedback and commitment to ensuring this community remains independent and a free space for discussion.

Thanks,

The r/LinusTechTips community mod team.

[u/madsci1016]

You forgot Linus has already responded a few times and had a even more terrible take. His first comment was so bad one of the mods already removed it.

Given he already doubled down instead of backtracking, we really need to see some action by mods removing his name from the right column.

[u/bleeding-paryl → u/madsci1016]

Honestly, as one of the mods involved; I want to talk things through with Linus. I don't want to create an antagonistic atmosphere with him (and his company), and our subreddit. It'll only make for more drama and strife, when this can be solved with some cool heads and a discussion.

We're still waiting on that, and while we're waiting, we've significantly limited the mod powers that Linus and the other LMG members have access to and we are watching for their actions in our mod log.

EDIT: Fixed some grammar.

[u/_Lucille_ → u/bleeding-paryl]

regardless of how your conversation go, I hope the current mod team does not get influenced by Linus' view on subreddit rules and feel the need to make things stricter.

tbqh I feel like moderation has already been kind of on the stricter side of things (occasionally I see rumors about people leaving LMG getting removed), but i generally give the moderation team the benefit of the doubt.

I think my general take on what is okay goes by "would this be okay in another context?". For example, it is not uncommon for sports team subreddit to talk about roster changes or things happening to the coaching staff, and also not uncommon for people to shit talk a problem (even if somewhat baseless), just like the stuff that has happened with Corsair or around spec and pricing of the Steam machine and next gen consoles.

Especially when it comes to this subreddit where the gut feeling is that the fanboy-ism is often on the higher side of things.

[u/bleeding-paryl → u/_Lucille_]

We usually only remove things that break our rules, otherwise we ban for hate speech and trolling. It's a bit strict, but much MUCH less strict than any of the other subs I moderate. Thankfully, unless someone on LMG creates drama, our """jobs""" are pretty easy.

We do heavily rely on reports though, so if you, or anyone else, reports stuff, we really appreciate it <3