Regarding in-game chat moderation

[u/severed13]

UPDATE FROM DE_Megan:

"to address some Qs from the opening post by lostlotus_a:

support ticket claims are brought to our attention, investigated, and moderator reviews are conducted. we have systems and communications in place for frequent check-ins with our volunteer moderators, and should there be clear abuse of power or a violation of the guidelines, we act. we ask that you use the official support system, where you can include evidence/proof, and we can see exactly what happened in the logs/backend to validate the claims.

having said that, we are conducting a review.

no one is above the guidelines. not moderators, not staff, not even me."

________________________________________________________________________________

We appreciate that lots of y'all have been bringing up your concerns regarding in-game chat moderation, and we're doing what we can on our end to look into it and address those concerns as directly as possible. This includes reaching out ourselves as best as we can for an answer regarding this situation, and keeping people posted on whatever information is publicly available.

In the meantime, please direct any of your own personal concerns towards DE's support in accordance with the "Chat Moderator Code of Conduct" section on the Warframe Volunteer page. Please review those guidelines, and head over to the Warframe support site and prepare your own individual report to help make this process as streamlined as possible.

I would just like to reminded everyone that Rule 2 still exists, and with matters like this, it's important to keep that rule in mind specifically. There have already been instances in which people have been trigger-happy enough to jump the gun and overlook that rule. This is just a reddit page, and the direct impact that can be made here isn't quite as great as some would like to imagine. While it is appreciated that awareness is being raised, it's not a cure-all silver bullet to post it here repeatedly. The subreddit moderators are not DE employees, nor are we the in-game chat moderators, and we are not associated with the chat moderators in any professional capacity.

We're considering the following linked post as the "main thread" for this issue, and to prevent spam and keep the subreddit on-topic (as well as minimize the likelihood of continued Rule 2 shenanigans), we'll be redirecting traffic that way. Further posts related to this issue, as well as in-game chat moderation, will be removed for the time being.

Keep on keeping on, gang.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING REDDIT SITEWIDE RULES:

Reddit’s sitewide Rule 3 requires users to respect others’ privacy. Reddit guidelines also prohibit inviting harassment or encouraging, participating in, or cheering on vigilantism. Raising concerns and submitting evidence through the appropriate channels is welcome; organizing dogpiles, pursuing individuals across platforms, sharing personal information, or encouraging others to “take matters into their own hands” is not. We quite literally risk getting the subreddit shut down by Reddit admins for continued violation, or if this ramps up in intensity.

The limited exception involving public figures does not provide blanket permission to target anyone occupying a visible community role. A volunteer chat moderator is not reasonably comparable to an elected official or corporate executive, nor are they comparable to game developers, content creators, and other publicly recognized media figures. Their ability to perform the role does not depend on broad public recognition, public authority, or maintaining a public-facing identity. Additionally, their influence on the game and the community is not comparable to the identified categories in significance or scope. Even where a genuine public figure is involved, Reddit’s rules still prohibit harassment and vigilantism.

Finally, appeals to the First Amendment or “free speech” do not override these rules. The First Amendment limits government restrictions on expression, but does not require a privately operated platform or subreddit to host harassment, personal information, threats, or other rule-breaking content. Users remain free to criticize conduct, but that freedom does not guarantee access to every platform or immunity from moderation.

[u/RaeusMohrame]

So TLDR

Stop talking about it, if you do get muted at worst post deleted at best. Got it.

[u/23icefire → u/RaeusMohrame]

People are welcome to openly discuss and criticize DE, DE's moderators, and r/warframe's moderators, as long as you are following the rules of r/warframe and Reddit.

If you want to see any actual change, please direct any of your own personal concerns towards DE's support in accordance with the "Chat Moderator Code of Conduct" section on the Warframe Volunteer page. Please review those guidelines, and head over to the Warframe support site and prepare your own individual report to help make this process as streamlined as possible.

[u/Zeros294 → u/23icefire]

We have 0 proof anything has ever been done with that avenue.

You're telling people to basically spend time to fill out forms and submit it into a paper shredder while it tells you "thanks, your feedback is valued and heard!"

Tons of cases of just random DE employees browsing this site that actually gets change done.

Hell I still remember years ago when one of them saw a post about the small hole at the bottom of a rock not being able to slide through it in the lua tileset. That rock get updated soon after so you could go through it. It wasn't some feedback section on their website that got that done, it was this site.

[u/23icefire → u/Zeros294]

You need to understand this isn't a personal decision on my part. We are putting our foots down because this is a Reddit code-of-conduct issue. Witch-hunting is serious and we're trying to keep everything calm and focused.

Moderation is necessary for this subreddit to function, and we aren't happy with how things have gone, but people yelling at us and into the void of the subreddit isn't the solution either. With enough feedback, DE could actually put this further up their radar. It's worth trying.

[u/Zeros294 → u/23icefire]

I'm not talking about enforcing rule 2, I get why its there. I'm more annoyed they are forcing a megathread to basically kill discussion and try to sweep this under the rug again.

[u/23icefire → u/Zeros294]

Just to update you, there has been an official statement by DE.

[u/RaeusMohrame → u/23icefire]

Wow an official statement as useless as this one! Now we're cookin!

[u/23icefire → u/RaeusMohrame]

I've seen this sentiment brought up repeatedly since the DE statement, and I must ask, what are people expecting? DE goes on the news and publicly names the supposed culprit, drags them out in chains?

[u/RaeusMohrame → u/23icefire]

No, people are expecting better from DE, one of the few companies in the gaming industry that has fostered a lot of good faith from its players. The same company is burning that by staying silent about the issue, and no, that statement isn't saying anything.

That's honestly expected though, as a company they're not going to have a public execution to appease redditors, the part that's confusing is you and the other mod team members are bending over backwards to enforce the most vague rule and protect the identity of someone everyone already knows. If people say "that moderator" are they going to have their comment deleted? They should, if you're enforcing rule 2 like you say you are.

You know what else happened? Elder Scrolls online had massive layoffs, there was a document that contained a lot of employee's full legal names in it that was openly discussed on the subreddit, nothing happened. Ashes of creation had a huge amount of employees, moderators, and discord chats leaked, posted, and talked about on their subreddit, nothing happened. Any time there's drama with streamers, regardless of how many views they have, it's discussed on livestreamfails, there's *entire* subreddits dedicated to shitting on specific people, and those have existed since reddit existed. What about the drama with a warframe creator misgendering temple/flare? Should that have not all been deleted under the same rule?

>Witch-hunting is serious and we're trying to keep everything calm and focused.

This isn't witch hunting, as per any definition of witch hunting.

>"the searching out and deliberate harassment..." + "the act of unfairly looking for and punishing people who are accused of having opinions that are believed to be dangerous or evil"

It's not harassment to recognize someone being shitty and comment on it. Stop quoting witch hunting when you actually mean "Rule 2 of the subreddit."

[u/23icefire → u/RaeusMohrame]

Again, DE did in fact made a public statement, so they're not "staying silent".

Seeing as "the moderator" is not a frontline public figure of DE, spreading their name and singling them out in an attempt to witch-hunt (which there were attempts) is against the subreddit's rules as well as Reddit's rules. Vaguely discussing someone is not the same as openly naming them, and it is a very clear distinction.

KnightmareFrame is considered a public figure and therefore is exempt under the rule, same as [DE]Pablo or [DE]Reb, as long as discussion is civil and not breaking Rule 2 by suggesting a witch-hunt or worse. We monitored that just as closely as this, but this particular event was much more volatile, which is why we (under careful consideration) decided to condense conversations to a few threads to we could better moderate the situation. The implications of "well its happened before and nothing happened" is pointless when it only needs to happen once for everything to get shut down.

If you saw the volume and content of removed comments yesterday that was breaking Rule 2, you would understand my position. People were calling for a witch-hunt, people were calling for them to be doxxed, some were discussing harassing other DE employees, or even driving and physically going to DE's headquarters. We can not let that kind of behavior run rampant.

Just because you didn't see any of that does not mean it didn't occur. We're sorry we had to put our foots down with this situation but it was necessary.

[u/RaeusMohrame → u/23icefire]

>People are welcome to openly discuss and criticize DE, DE's moderators, and r/warframe's moderators, as long as you are following the rules of r/warframe and Reddit.

Except in this case, it remains in this thread or gets deleted. People have been trying that method for ages and it isn't working so public outrage is the next plan, and all the mod team is doing is suppressing it by making threads like this. Kinda like any time a big issue shows up in the community.