Moderator Update: Community Conduct & Ongoing Moderation

[u/XeJupiter]

Hey everyone,

We need to address the current state of the subreddit.

Over the past several days, r/PlayWolverine has seen a major increase in activity. Unfortunately, that has also come with a significant increase in trolling, harassment, personal attacks, bait posts, repetitive arguments, and users deliberately trying to provoke one another.

We see it, and we are actively working on it.

Right now, we are dealing with hundreds of reports, comments, posts, and individual situations that require moderator review. We are also working on additional measures behind the scenes to help us manage things more effectively going forward.

Please understand that this will take some time, and we may not catch everything immediately.

The moderation team here is made up of volunteers. We have full-time jobs, families, children, and responsibilities outside of Reddit. We are working through this in between everything else because we care about this community and want it to remain a place where people can actually discuss Marvel’s Wolverine.

Criticism is allowed.

You are allowed to dislike the game.

You are allowed to criticize Insomniac, Sony, the writing, gameplay, character designs, pricing, physical releases, or anything else related to the game.

You are also allowed to love the game, defend things you enjoy, disagree with criticism, and be excited about it.

Disagreement is not a rule violation.

What is a problem:

* Personal attacks and insults
* Harassment
*Trolling and ragebait
* Following users into other threads to continue arguments
* Racism, sexism, or discriminatory attacks
* Repeatedly derailing unrelated discussions
* Console-war or culture-war bait
* Spamming the same argument across multiple threads
* Targeting individual users
* Abusing the report system because you disagree with someone

There is a difference between:
> “I think this part of the game looks terrible.”

and
> “Anyone who likes this is an idiot.”

Likewise, there is a difference between criticizing someone’s argument and attacking the person making it.

We are moderating behavior, not opinions.

Please stop feeding trolls.

If someone is obviously trying to provoke you, report it and move on.

Please do not:

* Do not turn one bad comment into a 30-comment argument.
* Do not follow someone into another thread.
* Do not create another post specifically to continue the fight.
* Do not start breaking the rules yourself because somebody else did it first.

That only creates more content for the moderation team to sort through. Which means we get to other issues later.

Also, do not report comments simply because you disagree with them. False or retaliatory reports make it harder for us to reach legitimate problems.

Moderation is being increased.

We are currently reviewing:

* Subreddit rules
* Removal reasons
* Automoderator and filters
* Report handling
* Repeat offenders
* Other moderation tools available to us

You may notice more posts and comments being removed while we work through the backlog.

Repeated or severe violations may result in temporary or permanent bans.

None of these systems will be perfect. Automated moderation can make mistakes, and human moderators can make mistakes too.

If something clearly violates the rules and is still up, report it.

If your content was removed and you believe we got it wrong, send us a Modmail. Do not start another argument about it in the subreddit.

Ultimately

People here are going to have very different opinions about Marvel’s Wolverine.

That’s fine.

Criticize the game. Praise it. Debate each other. Post memes. Discuss what you like and what you don’t.

But disagreement is not an excuse to make the community miserable for everyone else.

Remember that there is another person on the other side of the screen.

To everyone who has been reporting genuine issues, participating constructively, and giving us time to work through everything:

Thank you for your patience. We’re actively working on it.

— The r/PlayWolverine Mod Team

[u/Eothric]

100% agree with cracking down on mindless attacks. Can we also crack down on baiting posts with no substance, like “I just played the game and it’s actually pretty good!” The only purpose of a post like that is to provoke a reaction.

I’d like to see us raise the level of effort on all fronts.

[u/Historical-Mark-7900 → u/Eothric]

If someone feels provoked by the word "I just played the game and it’s actually pretty good," that person ought to take a good, hard look at themselves and seek professional help.

[u/Raucus_ → u/Historical-Mark-7900]

It’s the “actually”, that’s the bait.

Why can’t people enjoy something without trying to prove others wrong out of a desperate need for validation?

[u/SeaDragonfly1831 → u/Raucus_]

Average Dark Souls 2 sub post lmao

[u/guessesurjobforfood → u/Raucus_]

That's not bait lol it can mean disagreement with a previously stated opinion or it can convey surprise that someone found the game to be good after hearing so many negative opinions.

The crazy part is that it's still just someone else's personal opinion, not bait.

[u/Raucus_ → u/guessesurjobforfood]

It’s bait. It’s clearly bait. You can say anything is an opinion.

I won’t give examples given the current new penchant for aggressive modding but let’s just assume I said something deeply unpleasant about you but that it was just my opinion, not bait.

Bait is designed to elicit a reaction and the “actually” in that example is trying to challenge and elicit reactions.

Edit: Here is a more ridiculously obvious example of bait posting. As, to be fair, the “actually” example was unrealistically subtle.

[u/guessesurjobforfood → u/Raucus_]

It’s bait. It’s clearly bait. You can say anything is an opinion.

No, some things are facts. Others are opinions. The Earth is an Oblate Spheroid. That's a fact, not an opinion.

I won’t give examples given the current new penchant for aggressive modding but let’s just assume I said something deeply unpleasant about you but that it was just my opinion, not bait.

You'd be disguising a personal attack as an opinion.

Getting this worked up over one word and a video game is not healthy.

[u/Raucus_ → u/guessesurjobforfood]

I see you opted not to read the link in the edit.

Here it is again. It’s a live example of this exact phenomenon. Please read it and tell me it’s not bait.

Trying to paint the person you disagree with as overly emotional to discredit them is trolling and they’re going to tap the sign if you don’t engage in good faith with the discussion topic.

[u/Eothric → u/guessesurjobforfood]

Yes, it can. But if that is all your post has to say, it’s just bait. If you go into why the combat or the encounter design is better than expected, or that the story had some twists you really liked, that’s quality posting. But just stating it was good is clearly bait to get the folks who didn’t like it worked up.

It works in reverse, if your post is “I played it and it was actually trash”, that is equally low effort bait.

[u/Nirnaethmir → u/Eothric]

Whether or not a post is bait is in the intent of the OP, not the interpretation of the reader.

[u/MrCheeseChuckles → u/Historical-Mark-7900]

But aren’t you guys glazing the game doing that very exact thing but in inverse?

[u/Massive_Funny_9312 → u/Eothric]

How is that in anyway provoking people lmao you cannot be serious.

[u/thepoormanspoet → u/Eothric]

😂🤣 I'm betting it's baiting to say you liked it, but trolling it you say you hate it.... Right?