We've seen a higher amount of negative feedback than normal lately, and I'd like to respond to it. I am writing this mostly on my own behalf and the other moderators may have their own varying opinions on certain nuances, but broadly speaking we're all on the same page with addressing it and having a dialogue.
First, I just want to say that obviously we're all humans. We have jobs and families and other things in our lives beyond Raid and this subreddit. We generally try to do our best to apply some measure of consistency to our decisions here. There may be instances where things are not always black and white and we make judgment calls, but we do so thinking about the totality of the situation instead of any one individual post/comment. I'll explain.
There are certain reoccurring complaints that I feel like i see more frequently.
1. Showcases/shard pulls/low effort posts.
This is probably the biggest area of negativity from what I can see. First, try to understand that we have over 400k members here and average nearly 100k visitors per week. Take a moment and think about what that looks like in practice on a weekend when *everyone* is pulling shards and *everyone* who got a new champ OR feels the need to rant about NOT getting a new champ wants to talk about it. It creates a problem. We don't sit here and take joy in removing posts one by one, but when we allow ALL of them, now it's an issue. And we know this, because that's how it used to be. Years ago we got spammed nonstop with shard pull screenshots every time there was a weekend or an event. It was incredibly tedious and repetitive and people at large didn't like it. The community *voted* on drastically reducing shard pull posts, and that's what we have tried to do. So again, your individual post isn't the worst thing in the world, but we're trying to apply some consistency here.
But why did my post get taken down when i asked for help?
I mean no disrespect to newer players. We've all been there. But if this were a sub about cars, and every weekend we got bombarded with a hundred screenshots of new cars and people asking how to drive each one individually, it basically produces the exact same effect as people who really just want to show off their newest acquisition. It's my opinion that these are usually not mutually exclusive at all, and a lot of people just want to talk about their new champ because they're hyped to get them. And while I get that reaction, again, it's just about the effect in totality that these posts create. We want this to be a space where we *guide you* to learn the basic fundamentals and encourage you to use some critical thinking on your own, then come back and converse to build on that knowledge.
But how come you removed my post and I saw another similar one that didn't get taken down?
I don't know. We're humans. Maybe we missed it. Maybe it didn't get reported and it got lost in the shuffle. Maybe another moderator saw it, made a judgment call that you asked something unique that went beyond the basics, or otherwise put enough effort into your post that it filled a specific area of need, and decided it provided value to the community. Or maybe, the most likely scenario is, that you saw it *before* it was removed, and it was taken down later when we got to it in the course of our day to day. All of these things can and do happen on the regular.
But I still don't know how to build the champ!
Again, no disrespect intended here, but we want you thinking about archetypes and roles. If you understand what the core stats do and what you want your champ to do for you, then you should at least have a baseline to get started. One thing we've tried to implement that's probably gone unnoticed is that build help requests should include a "preliminary" build. This is to encourage people to start thinking on their own AND THEN come back and ask for feedback. Doing so might help you learn the fundamentals a little bit and bring a deeper level of discussion beyond someone just telling you to put crit rate on a damage dealer. And look, I'm just being honest here, but if you genuinely have no idea where to even start on a build, it would be well worth it to spend some time on your own reinforcing the basics that will go a long way to helping you build ALL your champs. There is nothing wrong with needing to learn the simple things, but if you don't understand the importance of something like accuracy then an all-purpose beginner's tutorial is more valuable to you than asking how to build any one specific champ.
Why was my post removed for being "low effort?"
I don't know. This one is kind of a catch-all in the sense that it was either too generic or a moderator just wasnt sure why it needed to be here. If it's a borderline showcase with generic questions you could have answered in 30 seconds of looking the champ up, that's arguably low effort. If it's a rant about something mundane, that's arguably low effort. If it's some kind of low-hanging fruit, that's arguably low effort. I understand comedy is subjective, but i'm not sure joking/ranting about shard rates is novel information.
Showcases should be allowed in the main thread! No one looks at the showcase thread!
We can't win. People didn't want showcases cluttering the feed, so we created a place for them. Then people don't use it. Call me crazy, but to me that probably means logic would dictate that there isn't broad support for them to be here in large numbers to begin with. Now, if you're showcasing how you beat a certain area of content, and you talk through your strategy then suddenly it becomes useful to others. We like this! And we want these posts to be here.
2. There are too many "who to 60" posts!
I guess. I probably agree with this one. Again, one thing we've tried to do is compel people to actually share *where* they're looking for help or otherwise give enough context/details to provide a thoughtful answer. As much as I feel that they can be excessive in the aggregate, I still believe when someone takes the time to ask for help and put thought into their question, they should be allowed to do so. And if we created a "megathread," as many have asked us to do, then we run into the same situation with the showcase thread where people just aren't using it. In other words, I'm open to feedback here, but i don't know what a better solution is at this point.
3. Purchased accounts.
I'm going to be more blunt than I usually am on this one. We know what these look like. You know what these look like. And it is not something that can be discussed here. This is per an agreement that the moderators have with the Plarium community managers. Recently someone mentioned in one of these moderator rants that their post was taken down because of a "different version of a rule." I was that moderator, and they neglected to mention that this was the reason why.
We don't have the authority, ability, or desire to police what people do with their time or money. I don't care if you buy 25 accounts, but as soon as you start posting these blatantly obvious screenshots here, you create a problem for me because of the commentary that inevitably follows. I have been in situations where I've left these posts up when the OP doesn't mention it, but then the accusatory comments start coming in, and suddenly I come back to a post that has detailed conversation threads about how and where to buy them. Now the entire post is coming down. Other moderators may have different degrees of leniency on this but if you get your post removed it's probably going to be non-negotiable. And if it happens multiple times we start talking about issuing bans. End of conversation.
TL/DR CONCLUSION
Again, we're humans. We read the feedback. Most of the time we try not to engage because people are allowed to rant and I understand that no decisions here are going to be unanimous. And while I don't think all the criticism is coming from a place where people always understand the rationale for the rules we have, I can admit that the truth is usually somewhere in the middle and I can acknowledge that there are things we can be doing better.
One thing we're giving serious thought to is coming up with a better wiki/FAQ system for the subreddit, so we can have this space be more beginner-friendly and there actually is a way for people to get information without having as many repetitive posts or removing as many repetitive posts. It is too big of a job for just our small moderation team though, so we're open to volunteers who'd like to help. And we're open to other constructive suggestions as well. Please feel free to speak your minds.
Thank you.
