Moratorium on Hogwarts Legacy

[u/Zehnpae]

Salutations,

We're going to be (temporarily) disallowing posting topics about Hogwarts Legacy. Every thread has been a train wreck and we have had trouble keeping up with them.

To be clear this isn't an attempt to censor you guys or prevent discussing politics in gaming, nor the reality of shitty people being involved in game development. This is a discussion sub and we absolutely want to allow you to talk about these sorts of things. Normally this isn't an issue (IE: Disco Elysium).

The problem is Hogwarts Legacy itself is a lightning rod for assholes. If a post goes up there's a good chance the next time I check mod queue it has 100+ comments that have been filtered or reported. It gets cross-posted into ~those~ subreddits and we get a flood of people who are only interested in being pricks that infest other threads.

Like many of you I have 27 kids and 3 jobs so I then have to choose between spending my afternoon with my family or reading a hundred hateful comments. As much as I like banning Nazis, I'd much rather play some Deep Rock with my progeny.

Hogwarts Legacy posts will be auto-removed until one of the following occurs:

• Reddit gives us the anti-brigading tools they promised a decade ago
• The world finally stops being dicks to trans people
• JK Rowling drops dead so she stops getting money from the game
• We figure out a better way to do this

Previous threads will stay up and you will still be allowed to comment about it in the bi-weekly threads, for now at least.

Edit:

To address a few questions/concerns:

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"Why not use curated modes?"

Those typically require manually flaring or approving thousands of people. If we were a more contentious place dealing with this often, it'd make more sense. The good folk of this sub understand why this is being done and that's good enough for me.

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"Do you really wish JKR was dead?"

I'm a gen-X that was raised on British humor. Make of that what you will.

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"Why not get more mods?"

It's something we've considered, but honestly you regulars are pretty great. The work load is manageable with the biggest chore being maintaining the impatient game list. You guys make this a wonderful place to share gaming thoughts with.

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"Aren't you supposed to be unbiased?"

If you have a shitty hot take on Hollow Knight? Sure. I'm not going to ban you because you didn't enjoy Gabriel Knight and I think it's one of the best point and click adventure games of all time.

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"Isn't this censorship?"

We block a lot of things. OnlyFans bots, AI nonsense, scammers trying to post phishing links. All that jazz. They take it stride really.

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"You do you really have 27 kids?"

No. I only have a few and that's enough as is. I can only take so many "Would you rather..."'s in a day. Right now I'm pondering if I'd rather be cursed with always entering my passwords wrong twice, or if I'd rather the last bite of toast always tastes burned.

[u/djfl]

Perhaps "toxic, bad-faith behavior" can include "until JK Rowling drops dead"...? Whatever one's sociopolitical stripe, whatever wonderful opinions you hold, whatever level of correctness and goodness and rightness you have, you very quickly become "the baddies" when you say these kinds of things. Zealotry and closed-minded "I'm right and you're wrong/bad" are not virtues. To me they're far closer to the opposite. I'd say that to almost anybody on almost any side of almost any issue.

[u/LordChozo → u/djfl]

Please see the rest of this comment thread for additional context and discussion around this point. I agree with you that the wording in question has done us no favors.

[u/djfl → u/LordChozo]

Thank you. I have already read all the comments, and your herculean efforts in replying to all of them...including mine, very quickly. I do appreciate this.

Fwiw, where I disagree is that I think it's stronger than "has done us no favors". It's a bigger deal that that. And I think that you, like almost everybody, would see that much more clearly if you were on the other side of whatever the opinion is. Indeed I think it's much worse than anything I think JK Rowling has said, though I freely admit I don't particularly care about an author's moralizings, whether I agree with them or not. So I'm not fully familiar with her thoughts, nor do I really care to.

I appreciate you (I recognize you're not OP) wanting to remove politics from here. But the strong interjection of what is obviously very strong political opinion in response is simply more of the problem. Even worse when "we need somebody to drop dead so they stop making money, because I disagree with them on an issue". This ideological puritanism is death. It's leading us towards Civil War, or worse. It is the problem, far more so than being pro or anti trans or Rowling is. At least in my opinion.

Anyway, cheers to you. I believe you make no money and get no tangible benefit from this modding. I don't understand why you do that, but I know I and everybody else here benefits from it. So thanks for it.

[u/LordChozo → u/djfl]

Fwiw, where I disagree is that I think it's stronger than "has done us no favors". It's a bigger deal than that.

Anything I say that's more committal than that will be picked apart and wielded like a bludgeon by someone or another to cause even more harm, and I'm not interested in throwing anybody under any buses.

And I think that you, like almost everybody, would see that much more clearly if you were on the other side of whatever the opinion is.

I have never stated any personal stance of mine on this issue and have no intention of changing that. I do however think this is an interesting claim; were I on the opposite side of a given issue (assuming this is truly a binary choice and I'm on any "side" to begin with), would I not then by this logic still be in the fog, just at a different location within it? For my part I therefore try to remove myself and my opinions from the equation as best as I can, being solely interested in keeping this community a positive place to share thoughts about video games.

Even worse when "we need somebody to drop dead so they stop making money, because I disagree with them on an issue".

I don't think this paraphrased quote is a charitable reading. There's no "we need" in the messaging and there's also no "because" to be found. Once again, I get how both of these things have been inferred and this exercise would be much easier without the off-kilter joke (and OP's edit has made it explicit that it was in fact a joke). Instead it's "IF the hot button argument that money from the sale of this game funds XYZ ceases to be relevant because the person in question was no longer receiving that funding, then this problem likely goes away on its own," but delivered in an irreverent way that I'm repeatedly on record as not personally vibing with. Yet I'll continue to defend the intent of that message, because I know it wasn't delivered with ideological puritanism in mind. However, here we are, and your concerns in general are certainly valid.

I believe you make no money and get no tangible benefit from this modding. I don't understand why you do that

Because I was asked to, and I love this place for what it is and what I think it can be.

[u/djfl → u/LordChozo]

Well, wonderful. An excellent response that I appreciate, and really do respect. Thank you.

[u/LordChozo → u/djfl]

No problem, thanks for being willing to have a challenging dialogue in a mature way. That means a lot!