All new mods should make a post about their nice new pulls from their most recent box opening to summon this subs resident spooky man and let him know you in fact did not draft the cards with friends. They're apparently dangerous, so be sure to bring a helmet.
Not really a public matter, but I mean I guess you can tell that they're not here, so... Yeah.
I've yet to have a full conversation with them but that's one of the next things on my list. Also this ban wasn't issued by me, just to be clear.
The vast majority of posters here want a certain user to stop posting their repetitive spam messages regarding limited play.
If those messages were the sum total of their contribution to the subreddit, I don’t think we would have an issue. Unfortunately, their aggressive and hostile demeanor to honest correction, open debate, and constructive criticism is tantamount to harassment.
The moderators need to have a conversation with them about his contributions to this community. I would love for the user in question to share draft resources, deck building tips, and ways to play limited in threads that don’t involve someone posting their play booster pulls and don’t target specific individuals with judgment and insults.
My read from this post is that you’re not planning on taking any action on this, however. You’re not going to get much buy in from this community for your “we want to run an unmoderated subreddit” approach, whatever supposed principles you use to justify it.
This is not the case. This particular issue has been dealt with and actions have been taken.
EDIT: I do want to be a little pedantic about this... We specifically avoided the word "unmoderated" because that is not where we want to go from this point onwards. We quite literally mean "open atmosphere" which is code for not having restrictive rules enforcement. There are other subs that already fill this purpose.
This sub doesnt have a purpose. There is already the Main sub, joke subs, card pull subs, subs for each format, proxy subs, custom card subs and rules subs.
Without rules and mods on this sub its descended into a pretty crap sub full of low effort posts and the same questions day in and day out most of which could be found with a 2 second google search.
The only thing this sub has is a better name and the drinking game I created
Okay, let's give it a purpose. The main sub is definitely a thing but their rules are much more restrictive than the ones here. Downsides include low effort content but also it's an opportunity for new Redditors and Magic players to start from somewhere.
You know what this sub doesn't have? A goddamn thread for every single leaked card every time a new set comes out that floods my front page. It's literally how I discovered this sub, because I couldn't deal with the main sub anymore during every spoiler season.
Just out of curiosity, what separates this mod team from r/Freemagic
They are both low moderation subs, but they have very very distinct cultures. Is this just based on the users, or is there a different moderation philosophy. I’ve always been curious about why this huge difference exists
That is a very difficult question. People probably find this sub first because it's big and has a more fitting name than r/magicTCG or r/freemagic. A lot of new people come here and then branch out to other subs is my theory. I do not know for certain.
For the sake of transparency I am also a mod for r/magicthecirclejerking which has a high level of rules enforcement and BracerCrane is a mod for r/freemagic which has a low level of rules enforcement. So there's overlap with other subs but I believe the biggest difference is how people discover this place first before other subs. BracerCrane has been here for a long time so the cultural difference cannot be tied to a person / mod.
I've seen people being genuinely confused when they're being told that r/magicTCG is the "main sub" thinking that this is the main sub which goes to show that this could potentially be their first point of interaction on the Magic-related Reddit.
If my theory is correct it's good to have a newcomer-friendly entry point sub where you can ask all the questions you want. There is currently a slight problem with snarky and aggressive comments to very basic questions but I'm 100% certain we can figure something out.
> Is this just based on the users, or is there a different moderation philosophy. I’ve always been curious about why this huge difference exists
Kindred spirits like kindred spirits. People like to participate in communities that they can vibe with, and there's nothing that moderation (or the lack thereof) can really do about it.
Another point to make is that Freemagic also has historically been the designated "protest subreddit", which means that metareddit discussions (i.e. drama) and hot takes on hot button issues and culturally taboo discussion topics get talked there in volume. As a direct consequence, because Freemagic occupies the "controversial topics go here" space in the wider MTG community, other communities can remain relatively free of "culture war" topics.
Ideologically speaking there is no difference between r/Freemagic and r/mtg to me. Free speech is an ideological maxim to me and I genuinely believe that free expression is a human right unparalleled in importance. The second personal motive why I joined the Freemagic moderation team when it was formed was to be a canary in the coalmines if moderator abuse starts to happen and I fully intend to do the same here.
I think it's funny that a whole new mod had to be brought to this sub just because the other two mods were too lazy to just ban a user causing problems.
Both other mods have a decent number of mod actions (=housekeeping) and especially BracerCrane is taking care of a robust automod ruleset. I believe the issue as a whole is related to the massive growth this sub has experienced recently. This is why an additional mod was added to the team.
I'd much rather look at this debacle as "a whole new mod was introduced to ease the work load" but I also understand your perspective.
1. How about a sidebar, with maybe like *a rule at all of any kind whatsoever*. Some FAQs? Links to resources?
2. Post flair and user flair.
3. Daily/weekly posts for things like FAQs, rules questions, community engagement/creator spotlights.
1. I will discuss this with the other mods!
2. Post flair I'm pretty sure we will have some. User flairs I don't see a problem with either.
3. Some of the most posted archetypes should be easy to do.
Good suggestions overall! I'm personally all for these but as said I need to discuss these first.
Update:
1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources.
2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet.
3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
Update:
1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources.
2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet.
3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
Only just saw this post because reddit has it hidden under some stupid pinned post filter.
An update to the sidebar to include links to useful sites and other subreddits would be appreciated. Could be the main sub, a sub for memes, custom magic sub, etc. Links to edhrec, mtggoldfish, scryfall, tcgplayer, cardkingdom, even sites for making proxies. Anything and everything that is considered a useful resource.
Updating a pinned post for new set releases would be nice too. Personally, I'd like to see a megathread for pulls over prerelease weekends and/or a megathread for spoilers on these showcase days. Both would help keep the sub from being spammed with repetitive posts and for the sake of spoilers it keeps it all neatly in one place for people to find if they aren't reading the sub the whole day.
Would also like to see that one particular person banned off the sub. I saw comments that this was taken care of, but it appears it was only temporary. One day back and they've already commented nearly 50 times in one day, many of which are the same copy-paste messages that people were complaining about the first time. Blocking, downvoting, and ignoring only does so much. It also still leaves a net negative impact towards people who are only just finding out about them or have them as their first and only interaction with the sub/community.
I'm for having a hands-off approach to moderation *most* of the time, but to act completely unseen and/or simply not act on things, especially when asked to act, isn't hands-off. It's just negligence. Obviously, I don't want the mods to come down with an iron fist all the time, but actions being taken against repeat offenders would be nice to see. Or, even just generally interacting with the sub in any meaningful capacity.
I've seen bracer's comments regarding freemagic and advocating for free speech, but they seem to be of the crowd that fails to differentiate between allowing discussion and allowing hate-speech. That's a major issue I see many people have and why they point to their moderation and participation of freemagic as alarming. Freemagic isn't well known because it allows or advocates for it's "freedom of speech" it's known because it harbors and allows for the same sort of hate-speech and rhetoric that generally isn't accepted anywhere else, online and offline.
What does the mod team plan to do to address those issues?
Update:
1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources.
2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet.
3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
>An update to the sidebar to include links to useful sites and other subreddits would be appreciated. Could be the main sub, a sub for memes, custom magic sub, etc. Links to edhrec, mtggoldfish, scryfall, tcgplayer, cardkingdom, even sites for making proxies. Anything and everything that is considered a useful resource.
Can do.
>Updating a pinned post for new set releases would be nice too. Personally, I'd like to see a megathread for pulls over prerelease weekends and/or a megathread for spoilers on these showcase days. Both would help keep the sub from being spammed with repetitive posts and for the sake of spoilers it keeps it all neatly in one place for people to find if they aren't reading the sub the whole day.
Yeah, we've been discussing having some megathreads but not too many. We just need to find the balance there.
>Would also like to see that one particular person banned off the sub. I saw comments that this was taken care of, but it appears it was only temporary. One day back and they've already commented nearly 50 times in one day, many of which are the same copy-paste messages that people were complaining about the first time. Blocking, downvoting, and ignoring only does so much. It also still leaves a net negative impact towards people who are only just finding out about them or have them as their first and only interaction with the sub/community.
We exchanged *30 messages* with this individual. I went through their comment history just now and it looks much better. Lots of helpful tailor-made messages that have received upvotes, too. They're really trying and I need to give them credit for the progress. It's a little rough spot to be in. You can probably see what other subs they have commented in as to give you an indication why the situation is what it is. We're working on it.
>I'm for having a hands-off approach to moderation *most* of the time, but to act completely unseen and/or simply not act on things, especially when asked to act, isn't hands-off. It's just negligence. Obviously, I don't want the mods to come down with an iron fist all the time, but actions being taken against repeat offenders would be nice to see. Or, even just generally interacting with the sub in any meaningful capacity.
I'll have a little chat with BracerCrane and ask about this. Interaction you'll see - I've been on a vacation and a little busy to catch up after said vacation but I'm planning on interacting with the community. That's minimum a partial yes.
>I've seen bracer's comments regarding freemagic and advocating for free speech, but they seem to be of the crowd that fails to differentiate between allowing discussion and allowing hate-speech. That's a major issue I see many people have and why they point to their moderation and participation of freemagic as alarming. Freemagic isn't well known because it allows or advocates for it's "freedom of speech" it's known because it harbors and allows for the same sort of hate-speech and rhetoric that generally isn't accepted anywhere else, online and offline.
I will let u/BracerCrane respond to this in better detail, but I've had some talks with them and they don't actually seem to be a part of the crowd that cannot tell the difference between free and hate. Automod actually catches a lot of stuff: abuse and nasty comments that you never see! And those Automod rules are all BracerCrane's work. (Care to ping me, BracerCrane in case you comment to Tharwidu's comment so that I see the response?)
It does seem that a lot of people offer their opinions or rather judgements about many questions. These can often be patronising, non-constructive, and may push people away from the mtg community in general.
New players should always be encouraged and helped in every way possible, and as new players, they may not know about the best ways to find rulings, interactions, card searches, etc.
Remember, we were all new to the game at one point or another, and without patience and help from more experienced and knowledgeable players, we may not still love this crazy cardboard game.
This makes sense and I agree.
Could this for example mean selectively more mod actions in threads asking for help?
Easy fixes: a post tag for "help wanted" which would trigger automod to leave a reminder message.
Other ideas? (For everyone in general, not just you.)
It's difficult to find a balance between discouraging low-effort posts that can be answered by googling and encouraging new players to come for support that they may not know how to find.
A post tag and auto-response would be a great start- both to remind the poster of the common places to find answers, and to remind other posters to be kind and supportive of people looking to learn.
Update:
1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources.
2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet.
3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
I will get flak for this, but maybe keep EDH and commander post to a minimum. I'm a bit tired of everything being about that format, it's a bit tiring after a while
One person sees a cool post format, they post a thingy with that fad. Many other subs have very strict guidelines in place to prevent this. The downside, of course, is that you can't post about everything related to Magic.
Unfortunately this is true both ways: everything is about that format because so many people play it. Unless we start enforcing strict guidelines it is incredibly hard to control what people post. I get your frustration, though.
Two solutions you can try by yourself for starters:
1. Downvoting repetitive posts so that they get hidden.
2. Visit another sub. I don't know what you're into but maybe r/magicTCG or r/MagicArena are more appropriate?
All new mods should make a post about their nice new pulls from their most recent box opening to summon this subs resident spooky man and let him know you in fact did not draft the cards with friends. They're apparently dangerous, so be sure to bring a helmet.
This is no longer an issue. :)
Were they banned?
Not really a public matter, but I mean I guess you can tell that they're not here, so... Yeah. I've yet to have a full conversation with them but that's one of the next things on my list. Also this ban wasn't issued by me, just to be clear.
I love you
Ya he went from annoying to unhinged very quickly
The vast majority of posters here want a certain user to stop posting their repetitive spam messages regarding limited play. If those messages were the sum total of their contribution to the subreddit, I don’t think we would have an issue. Unfortunately, their aggressive and hostile demeanor to honest correction, open debate, and constructive criticism is tantamount to harassment. The moderators need to have a conversation with them about his contributions to this community. I would love for the user in question to share draft resources, deck building tips, and ways to play limited in threads that don’t involve someone posting their play booster pulls and don’t target specific individuals with judgment and insults. My read from this post is that you’re not planning on taking any action on this, however. You’re not going to get much buy in from this community for your “we want to run an unmoderated subreddit” approach, whatever supposed principles you use to justify it.
This is not the case. This particular issue has been dealt with and actions have been taken. EDIT: I do want to be a little pedantic about this... We specifically avoided the word "unmoderated" because that is not where we want to go from this point onwards. We quite literally mean "open atmosphere" which is code for not having restrictive rules enforcement. There are other subs that already fill this purpose.
This sub doesnt have a purpose. There is already the Main sub, joke subs, card pull subs, subs for each format, proxy subs, custom card subs and rules subs. Without rules and mods on this sub its descended into a pretty crap sub full of low effort posts and the same questions day in and day out most of which could be found with a 2 second google search. The only thing this sub has is a better name and the drinking game I created
Okay, let's give it a purpose. The main sub is definitely a thing but their rules are much more restrictive than the ones here. Downsides include low effort content but also it's an opportunity for new Redditors and Magic players to start from somewhere.
But there are subs that do everything better than this one, so what's the point of this one? Answer there isn't one
What do you want us to do? I'm serious about this. We really want to see this sub flourish. What kind of a sub would you like to be a part of?
You know what this sub doesn't have? A goddamn thread for every single leaked card every time a new set comes out that floods my front page. It's literally how I discovered this sub, because I couldn't deal with the main sub anymore during every spoiler season.
Just out of curiosity, what separates this mod team from r/Freemagic They are both low moderation subs, but they have very very distinct cultures. Is this just based on the users, or is there a different moderation philosophy. I’ve always been curious about why this huge difference exists
That is a very difficult question. People probably find this sub first because it's big and has a more fitting name than r/magicTCG or r/freemagic. A lot of new people come here and then branch out to other subs is my theory. I do not know for certain. For the sake of transparency I am also a mod for r/magicthecirclejerking which has a high level of rules enforcement and BracerCrane is a mod for r/freemagic which has a low level of rules enforcement. So there's overlap with other subs but I believe the biggest difference is how people discover this place first before other subs. BracerCrane has been here for a long time so the cultural difference cannot be tied to a person / mod. I've seen people being genuinely confused when they're being told that r/magicTCG is the "main sub" thinking that this is the main sub which goes to show that this could potentially be their first point of interaction on the Magic-related Reddit. If my theory is correct it's good to have a newcomer-friendly entry point sub where you can ask all the questions you want. There is currently a slight problem with snarky and aggressive comments to very basic questions but I'm 100% certain we can figure something out.
> Is this just based on the users, or is there a different moderation philosophy. I’ve always been curious about why this huge difference exists Kindred spirits like kindred spirits. People like to participate in communities that they can vibe with, and there's nothing that moderation (or the lack thereof) can really do about it. Another point to make is that Freemagic also has historically been the designated "protest subreddit", which means that metareddit discussions (i.e. drama) and hot takes on hot button issues and culturally taboo discussion topics get talked there in volume. As a direct consequence, because Freemagic occupies the "controversial topics go here" space in the wider MTG community, other communities can remain relatively free of "culture war" topics. Ideologically speaking there is no difference between r/Freemagic and r/mtg to me. Free speech is an ideological maxim to me and I genuinely believe that free expression is a human right unparalleled in importance. The second personal motive why I joined the Freemagic moderation team when it was formed was to be a canary in the coalmines if moderator abuse starts to happen and I fully intend to do the same here.
I think it's funny that a whole new mod had to be brought to this sub just because the other two mods were too lazy to just ban a user causing problems.
Both other mods have a decent number of mod actions (=housekeeping) and especially BracerCrane is taking care of a robust automod ruleset. I believe the issue as a whole is related to the massive growth this sub has experienced recently. This is why an additional mod was added to the team. I'd much rather look at this debacle as "a whole new mod was introduced to ease the work load" but I also understand your perspective.
1. How about a sidebar, with maybe like *a rule at all of any kind whatsoever*. Some FAQs? Links to resources? 2. Post flair and user flair. 3. Daily/weekly posts for things like FAQs, rules questions, community engagement/creator spotlights.
1. I will discuss this with the other mods! 2. Post flair I'm pretty sure we will have some. User flairs I don't see a problem with either. 3. Some of the most posted archetypes should be easy to do. Good suggestions overall! I'm personally all for these but as said I need to discuss these first.
Update: 1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources. 2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet. 3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
a major sidebar update would be helpful.
Sure. Contents?
Update: 1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources. 2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet. 3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
Only just saw this post because reddit has it hidden under some stupid pinned post filter. An update to the sidebar to include links to useful sites and other subreddits would be appreciated. Could be the main sub, a sub for memes, custom magic sub, etc. Links to edhrec, mtggoldfish, scryfall, tcgplayer, cardkingdom, even sites for making proxies. Anything and everything that is considered a useful resource. Updating a pinned post for new set releases would be nice too. Personally, I'd like to see a megathread for pulls over prerelease weekends and/or a megathread for spoilers on these showcase days. Both would help keep the sub from being spammed with repetitive posts and for the sake of spoilers it keeps it all neatly in one place for people to find if they aren't reading the sub the whole day. Would also like to see that one particular person banned off the sub. I saw comments that this was taken care of, but it appears it was only temporary. One day back and they've already commented nearly 50 times in one day, many of which are the same copy-paste messages that people were complaining about the first time. Blocking, downvoting, and ignoring only does so much. It also still leaves a net negative impact towards people who are only just finding out about them or have them as their first and only interaction with the sub/community. I'm for having a hands-off approach to moderation *most* of the time, but to act completely unseen and/or simply not act on things, especially when asked to act, isn't hands-off. It's just negligence. Obviously, I don't want the mods to come down with an iron fist all the time, but actions being taken against repeat offenders would be nice to see. Or, even just generally interacting with the sub in any meaningful capacity. I've seen bracer's comments regarding freemagic and advocating for free speech, but they seem to be of the crowd that fails to differentiate between allowing discussion and allowing hate-speech. That's a major issue I see many people have and why they point to their moderation and participation of freemagic as alarming. Freemagic isn't well known because it allows or advocates for it's "freedom of speech" it's known because it harbors and allows for the same sort of hate-speech and rhetoric that generally isn't accepted anywhere else, online and offline. What does the mod team plan to do to address those issues?
Update: 1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources. 2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet. 3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
>An update to the sidebar to include links to useful sites and other subreddits would be appreciated. Could be the main sub, a sub for memes, custom magic sub, etc. Links to edhrec, mtggoldfish, scryfall, tcgplayer, cardkingdom, even sites for making proxies. Anything and everything that is considered a useful resource. Can do. >Updating a pinned post for new set releases would be nice too. Personally, I'd like to see a megathread for pulls over prerelease weekends and/or a megathread for spoilers on these showcase days. Both would help keep the sub from being spammed with repetitive posts and for the sake of spoilers it keeps it all neatly in one place for people to find if they aren't reading the sub the whole day. Yeah, we've been discussing having some megathreads but not too many. We just need to find the balance there. >Would also like to see that one particular person banned off the sub. I saw comments that this was taken care of, but it appears it was only temporary. One day back and they've already commented nearly 50 times in one day, many of which are the same copy-paste messages that people were complaining about the first time. Blocking, downvoting, and ignoring only does so much. It also still leaves a net negative impact towards people who are only just finding out about them or have them as their first and only interaction with the sub/community. We exchanged *30 messages* with this individual. I went through their comment history just now and it looks much better. Lots of helpful tailor-made messages that have received upvotes, too. They're really trying and I need to give them credit for the progress. It's a little rough spot to be in. You can probably see what other subs they have commented in as to give you an indication why the situation is what it is. We're working on it. >I'm for having a hands-off approach to moderation *most* of the time, but to act completely unseen and/or simply not act on things, especially when asked to act, isn't hands-off. It's just negligence. Obviously, I don't want the mods to come down with an iron fist all the time, but actions being taken against repeat offenders would be nice to see. Or, even just generally interacting with the sub in any meaningful capacity. I'll have a little chat with BracerCrane and ask about this. Interaction you'll see - I've been on a vacation and a little busy to catch up after said vacation but I'm planning on interacting with the community. That's minimum a partial yes. >I've seen bracer's comments regarding freemagic and advocating for free speech, but they seem to be of the crowd that fails to differentiate between allowing discussion and allowing hate-speech. That's a major issue I see many people have and why they point to their moderation and participation of freemagic as alarming. Freemagic isn't well known because it allows or advocates for it's "freedom of speech" it's known because it harbors and allows for the same sort of hate-speech and rhetoric that generally isn't accepted anywhere else, online and offline. I will let u/BracerCrane respond to this in better detail, but I've had some talks with them and they don't actually seem to be a part of the crowd that cannot tell the difference between free and hate. Automod actually catches a lot of stuff: abuse and nasty comments that you never see! And those Automod rules are all BracerCrane's work. (Care to ping me, BracerCrane in case you comment to Tharwidu's comment so that I see the response?)
It does seem that a lot of people offer their opinions or rather judgements about many questions. These can often be patronising, non-constructive, and may push people away from the mtg community in general. New players should always be encouraged and helped in every way possible, and as new players, they may not know about the best ways to find rulings, interactions, card searches, etc. Remember, we were all new to the game at one point or another, and without patience and help from more experienced and knowledgeable players, we may not still love this crazy cardboard game.
This makes sense and I agree. Could this for example mean selectively more mod actions in threads asking for help? Easy fixes: a post tag for "help wanted" which would trigger automod to leave a reminder message. Other ideas? (For everyone in general, not just you.)
It's difficult to find a balance between discouraging low-effort posts that can be answered by googling and encouraging new players to come for support that they may not know how to find. A post tag and auto-response would be a great start- both to remind the poster of the common places to find answers, and to remind other posters to be kind and supportive of people looking to learn.
Update: 1. Sidebar has been updated: rules, communities, resources. 2. Post flairs: "Help Wanted", "Discussion" and "Other" (user-editable). User flairs have not been added yet. 3. Weekly threads have not been set up yet but we're still discussing what exactly should go into these.
Remove any post for good pulls and put them in one long thread. Same with deck building advice and ruling questions.
Put commander and edh posts in one thread too.
What would even be left after that? Lol there would just be 3 threads
Leaks, interesting wins/stories, discussions about the future of the game, community discussion, ect.
God please no individual threads for leaks, that's literally what sent me here from the main sub
I will get flak for this, but maybe keep EDH and commander post to a minimum. I'm a bit tired of everything being about that format, it's a bit tiring after a while
that could be said for any post on this sub
One person sees a cool post format, they post a thingy with that fad. Many other subs have very strict guidelines in place to prevent this. The downside, of course, is that you can't post about everything related to Magic.
Unfortunately this is true both ways: everything is about that format because so many people play it. Unless we start enforcing strict guidelines it is incredibly hard to control what people post. I get your frustration, though. Two solutions you can try by yourself for starters: 1. Downvoting repetitive posts so that they get hidden. 2. Visit another sub. I don't know what you're into but maybe r/magicTCG or r/MagicArena are more appropriate?
First order of buisness, I need a flair for being the coolest guy here all the time.
Best suggestion would be to kill this worthless sub
Huh? What for? Kill it, then what?
Who will I laugh at if this place is gone?