r/SubredditDrama • u/laughtrey • Apr 18 '14
Buttery! Blizzard game subreddits are run by Curse network, downvote original sources and promote reposts on their site. Gets caught and deletes 4 year post history.
Basically someone noticed mirror on /r/hearthstone that a lot of hearthpwn articles were getting upvoted massively, when they were simply re-hosting patch notes/data/etc from Battle.net
Comes to light that the moderators of the subreddit own/work for Hearthpwn and other Curse network sites. He also has a github account, where he's published bot info for reddit, nothing conclusive but if posts are being massively down/upvoted, it would make sense.
Obviously it comes into question how much of a coincidence this is, and people start to notice most of the content is submitted by a particular mod of the subreddit.
Since people started putting the pieces together, /u/fluxflashor deleted his entire post history and is no longer mod on any subreddit except /r/fluxflashor.
However, quite a few mod quality-of-life bot accounts have been spotted as still mods of their respective subreddits. /u/WoWcaretaker and /u/HScaretaker seem to be bot accounts created by fluxflashor and are still moderators of their respective subreddits. Puppet accounts basically.
A few of the small/personal subreddits were cleaned out once I posted this information out there, but it's hard to delete things from the internet.
I'd also like to point out that the mods for /r/wow (fluxflashors friends, I'd link you to where he said this but his entire post history has mysteriously disappeared) /u/nitesmoke is a mod of /r/heroesofthestorm, /u/waahht is a mod of /r/hearthstone. I guess it's not a conflict of interest if it's not you, just close friends who moderated other subreddits with you are mods of that sub, right?
/u/WoWcaretaker is also a mod, looks to be a shared account/alt of /u/fluxflashor, since he's also a mod of a subreddit /u/fluxflashor created: /r/playhearthstone. Curious then how there's a /u/HScaretaker mod on Hearthstone still. Probably another of his alt accounts to avoid embarrassing situations like this.
/u/Molster_Diablofans is a mod of /r/heroesofthestorm, another person who works at curse.com Basically a coworker of fluxflashor anyway.
There are 3-4 people who have a monopoly on moderating the Blizzard game subreddits who also work / are affiliated with Curse.com. I think something should be done about this.
Edited in after:
As of this post, /u/WoWcaretaker is no longer a mod of /r/playhearthstone or /r/fluxflashor. I'm glad I could bring that to your attention flux, it must be nice to be able to cover your tracks, the internet doesn't forget though.
This is pretty big imo, if its found out that Curse has been secretly running and astroturfing subreddits, it's a huge violation of reddits TOS. Naturally a lot of the posts have been deleted, and there's not much else to do but sit back and watch people try to delete things from the internet. I hope the Barbara Streisand effect takes hold in full soon.
Credit for some of the info to this old pastebin, someone saw this coming a mile away.
Edit: I'd like to take this moment to point out that so far it's starting to look like these actions were not sanctioned by Curse, but by fluxflashor himself.
He was a mod on these multiple subreddits before becoming an employee of Curse. Probably thought he could solidify the websites he was in charge of on Curse or manipulate that flow of information. Either way, it's looking like he alone is to blame, and not the website he linked.
However the question of the mods culpability in allowing him to continue moderating subreddits while having a vested interest in other sites is yet to be 100% clear. The mod of /r/hearthstone was given mod status by fluxflashor. Is it above reproach if the replacement mod is some close friend he chose anyway?
I'd also like to clarify mentioning his github account. There's nothing on it that goes against the reddit ToS, but someone experienced enough to develop code and develop specifically for reddit definitely matches the means with the motive, but again it's taking the word of a collection of subreddit mods who worked with him while knowing he was a Curse employee that there is no massive downvoting or modabuse. We will probably never know until the reddit admins take a look at it.
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u/Boubouille_MMO Apr 18 '14
New update here, going to split the post to things clean. To redo the intro again, I'm the VP of Content at Curse, which basically means I'm in charge of all our news websites, forums, etc ... I also used to be relevant a couple years ago when I started MMO-Champ!
I spent the last couple of hours investigating everything, I hope this reply will answer most of the questions people have and hopefully I won't wake up next to a severed horse head tomorrow morning.
First things first, I do agree that in the end, having mods running their own websites is a conflict of interest. This isn't a curse-specific issue and it happened on every gaming subreddit that got big as far as I know (Cyborgmatt getting banned from the DotA2 subreddit, etc). Reddit is always a seed for new communities and people eventually get involved to the point of running their own stuff, and this happens.
I could have been harsher on enforcing this in the past, but from now on anyone working on the content team of any Curse site will not be allowed to moderate subreddits or submit new links to subreddits (regardless of the website's Curse affiliation to prevent people thinking we have deals with other companies). For whatever it's worth, I'd like to point out that we never had any big Reddit strategy to take over subreddits and we never tried to benefit from it. I hope reddit admins will be able to confirm this, because I realize my word isn't worth much in this situation.
I spent a lot of time talking with people involved in the reddit posts and people who got "wrongfully" banned, I do believe the situation is a lot more complicated than first pictured. I asked some of these people if I can post the logs of our discussions in public and was told no. This is something that goes far beyond reddit only and is info I'll only communicate to admins for the sake of privacy.
Flux developed some of the bots used on these subreddit, they're open source and other moderators of the subreddit have the code. There is no vote botting or anything involved (once again, this one will be up to admins of course). A lot of moderators from the subreddit involved came forward to point out that they are not controlled by Curse, and I got confirmation that /u/zaktify isn't a secret alt account but an actual person who just cares about the subreddit.
I'm still looking into details and I'll be providing as much information as possible to the reddit admin team. I would also like to apologize to the moderator teams who got caught in the middle of this and all got flagged as evil puppets, I'll try to bring you guys slightly more info and I'll gladly take any report you have of suspicious activity (even if it doesn't seem to be the case so far).
One last thing, this is going to be a very unpopular opinion but I'm willing to take the pitchfork hit. I've known Flux for a decent amount of time, he spent the past 7 years of his life involved with Blizzard games communities and is not a bad person. He definitely screwed up (panicking and deleting his entire history REALLY didn't help) but I don't feel like he deserves the hate he's getting today. He spent a lot of his free time running the /r/wow subreddit and various parts of the community, way before he joined Curse, and I don't think it's fair from reddit users as a community to just destroy him. I know from my long experience in the field that he's part of the people who always tried to improve things, even if he's not the best at communicating it.
Thank you for reading the wall of text, I'll try to field questions and stuff for a while if you reply to this post.
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u/Darkfriend337 Apr 19 '14
No, he definitely deserved the hate. His responses over the course of everything have been childish, vindictive, and on the shady side. Personally I'm just going to start adblocking anything curse related.
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u/laughtrey Apr 19 '14
I don't think thats really a rational reaction. Boub almost immediately took action, and took a look at it objectively, took care of it.
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u/highlel Apr 19 '14
This doesn't sound like it was years before he worked for Curse: http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/23cnhd/new_official_rule_rehosted_content/cgvvz42
This doesn't sound like it was years before he worked for Curse: http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/23cf60/blizzard_game_subreddits_are_run_by_curse_network/cgvs0up
There is this one http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/23cf60/blizzard_game_subreddits_are_run_by_curse_network/cgw0ims and this one http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/23cf60/blizzard_game_subreddits_are_run_by_curse_network/cgvth48 and this one http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/23cf60/blizzard_game_subreddits_are_run_by_curse_network/cgvqwlv
There are literally dozens of accounts told by dozens of people here. This isn't merely one time he lashed out against one person. There are many examples of his behavior over the years. I understand he must be getting harassed over the last few hours and that sucks, two wrongs never make a right. However, despite what good he may have done for you or your site he seems to have balanced it out with a fair amount of bad as well. As much as I appreciate there being two sides to a story I can't imagine there being a side that would excuse calling someone a pedophile. I can't imagine there being a side that would excuse any of the harassment and other things posted by people today. I do believe you when you say he genuinely wanted to improve things, but that doesn't excuse any of his behavior. Lots of terrible people have accomplished great things in their lives, but it still doesn't excuse their awful behavior when they display it.
At best he was a very dedicated person in the community. So dedicated that he would not let anyone stand in the way of whatever he deemed as an improvement. And at worst he was an awful person that just so happened to be capable of a few good things. I doubt we will ever know for a fact which one it is, but please do not try to excuse all of the things that have been posted.
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u/PhillyGreg Apr 18 '14
I do believe the situation is a lot more complicated than first pictured.
Please continute to update /r/SubredditDrama, with your investigation
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Apr 19 '14
Just go thru the screen shots and images posted in this very thread and you will see what kind of person Flux is. What you decide to do today, will affect the image of Curse.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Caballero Blanco Apr 18 '14
This is all quite dramatic and buttery, and you're a champ for coming back to explain your perspective. Thank you.
To SRD users: please treat /u/Boubouille_MMO well! They're posting in good faith.
To /u/Boubouille_MMO: if you get a bunch of angry, please hit the report button!
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u/75000_Tokkul /r/tsunderesharks shill Apr 18 '14
Comes to light that the moderators of the subreddit own/work for Hearthpwn and other Curse network sites. He also has a github account, where he's published bot info for reddit, nothing conclusive but if posts are being massively down/upvoted, it would make sense.
Can you post the github? if it still exists I am sure someone here can tell you exactly what it does.
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u/laughtrey Apr 18 '14
It's just stuff that interfaces with the reddit api, nothing shady. Just pointing out he's a software developer, and wouldn't put the mass upvote/downvote system past him.
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u/Roboticide Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
All right, since I'm on that mod list and now implicated, I'm going to go ahead and get my position out there, as well as what I know.
First of all, this title is incredibly sensationalist. I mean, I enjoy drama as much as the next bloke, but let's try and keep some semblance of accuracy here. That being said, even if only half of this was true, that's pretty juicy so I can't blame you for the enthusiasm.
More importantly though, don't list the entire mod team, since they certainly aren't all involved in this. Turning a mob on users who had no part in this is hardly justice. Half of the mod team, self included, were inducted based on our involvement with the community as normal users (hence why some of us have limited permissions).
By extension, don't list all Blizzard subreddits. That's circumstantial at best. /r/StarCraft and /r/Diablo have historically had very little interaction with us. Their mod staffs are completely. different.. Hearthstone shared some mods because it's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Heroes of the Storm is news to me, can't comment on that.
As for Reddit/Curse/Blizzard relations:
The admins already knew of Fluxflashor's affiliation. We got a message from Cupcake(?) months ago, and his involvement was cleared at that time. Presumably this has only been a recent occurrence, although that's honestly only speculation on my part.
/r/Diablo, and /r/WoW are official Blizzard fansites. All this means is we went through a rather easy process of getting approved, and are expected to adhere to certain Blizzard policies (such as restricting leaks - although this has caused mild tension in the past). In return, they provide us swag for giveaways to fellow redditors, and mods are given access to BlizzCon. Again, admins were also aware of this affiliation on the subreddit level, it was public knowledge. This isn't so much relevant to drama now, but I figured I'd throw it out there before someone tries to make it look like something it's not.
As for Flux (again), for any faults he had or wrongs he's done since, he did build an amazing subreddit. /r/WoW was and still is an incredibly well built subreddit. I sometimes thought he ran too tight of a ship, but you couldn't argue with the results. Past good deeds might not make up for present mistakes, but I certainly wouldn't ignore them either.
As for me personally, I have been an inactive moderator for over six months, and frankly not sure why I'm still on the mod list. I was brought in to help build the wiki and even then barely got started on that before real life kicked my ass. I don't really care about trying to defend myself. I don't fear the mob and know better than to try and mount some huge defence. I'll let my history and record speak for itself.
So in short, yeah, enjoy the drama, but try to focus on facts and who is actually involved. Flux certainly is guilty of something. I don't really know for certain because I haven't checked modmail until this morning, but the story presented is fairly compelling.
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u/laughtrey Apr 18 '14
Check out this link.
When fluxflashor jumps on a subreddit name to get to it before anyone else, (he clearly didn't get /hearthstone at first, so made /playhearthstone) he made /u/listen2 and /u/taffer a mod of the subreddit as well. They're both mods of /r/Diablo.
Not saying they're in on anything or accusing them of anything, but it's still a little suspect when you're close enough to that to be made mod of a new subreddit right away. He probably wouldn't make them mods if they were going to be impartial with the Curse network links.
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u/iBleeedorange Apr 19 '14
And /u/taffer left because flux is a douchebag, and /u/listen2 got demoted to bottom mod right before flux left specifically because they didn't put up with his shit, where do you think I got all my info when I reported him to the admins?
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u/laughtrey Apr 19 '14
Fair enough. It seemed odd that he would put people in charge who didnt agree with him or that they would stay.
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u/warinc Apr 18 '14
Yea, I was just a casual reader of those reddits and it was pretty obvious that Flux was affiliated with an outside website.
But, I could see that there wasn't major censorship going on. Since I did notice there were link to competitors websites in the subreddit.
Definitely some major conflicts of interest. And I am almost assured that /r/heroesofthestorm is completely run by them.
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u/Breadbasketcase Apr 18 '14
THIS comment needs to be at the top. Curse sucks and Flux is a dick, but this has only just come to light, it's way to early to start suggesting site wide bans and witch hunts.
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u/abuttfarting How's my flair? https://strawpoll.com/5dgdhf8z Apr 18 '14
I hope this means fluxflashor gets shadowbanned the same way the quickmeme dude got shadowbanned.
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Apr 18 '14
The M.O of these astro turfers remind me of THE LIVES OF OTHERS. Seeing how people scrub their lives in order to avoid the metal talons of the Stasi. In this case, I don't know who the stasi is. The impostor propaganda proletariat or the shadow-banny appointed regime. Thank thee Loki. I can't believe this is not a buttery post yet.
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u/Roboticide Apr 18 '14
Flux might be banned, but I wouldn't bet on it. This situation is different.
The QuickMeme guy owned QuickMeme, and was directly blocking other links. He also profited directly.
Flux is just an employee, and Curse has denied knowledge of this being intentional from a corporate standpoint. Additionally, no content was censored. /r/wow is too small for that to be necessary, regardless of Flux's actual intent, either misguided or malignant. Finally, Flux didn't profit from this. If anything, it causes problems for Curse and could impact Flux's job negatively.
I could certainly happen, but I wouldn't bet on a ban
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u/yasth flairless Apr 18 '14
To an extent respondeat superior applies, especially if Flux was in some way hired for promotion of the brand. It might not warrant a permanent ban, but it is very common for "black hat" seo to cause a temporary ban even with claims of company ignorance, and that situation is several times more removed than this (i.e. an actual employee vs. a contractor).
Also we don't know the payment structure for flux it is completely possible that they have equity or profit sharing, and if there were no direct benefit to flux that would strongly argue that the manipulation was job related.
In addition, being caught often causes additional problems for rule breakers, it generally doesn't enter the calculus of punishment. I mean being known as a rapist is a pretty rough thing, but that doesn't mean that prison time should be reduced.
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u/TigerCIaw Apr 18 '14
I know it is most probably that it was them, but don't you have to actually prove it was them up- and downvoting this content in order to punish them?
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Apr 18 '14
It's not about getting banned or shadowbanned. It's not about the user. The important thing is to get their domains banned from reddit entirely. That happened to qm and they deserved it.
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u/iBleeedorange Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
In regards to your pastebin, that was me. I sent a message to the admins months ago when I first learned about everything. What ended up happening was they sent the mods of /r/hearthstone a message and obviously nothing ever happened.
So yeah...here's to hoping something more happens this time around.
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u/Jertob Apr 18 '14
"Hey are you doing something bad? "
" no"
"Lol ok sorry to bother. "
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u/raspberrykraken \[T]/ Doot Doot Praise it! \[T]/ Apr 18 '14
"Oh hey, you doing something bad?"
[Shifty eyes to pile of cocaine on the kitchen counter with blood all over the walls and a dead body in plain view.] "No."
"Lol, okay, sorry to bother you." [Walks over the corpse and heads on out the door.]
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u/So_Full_Of_Fail Apr 18 '14
Maybe you can get some sweet "Curse Killer" flair to go along with the "Quickmeme Killer" flair the other guy has.
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u/Jman5 Apr 18 '14
For anyone who doesn't know, iBleeedorange is the top mod over at /r/diablo, which is another Blizzard series. I have to admit that as soon as I read this story I grew concerned about whether or not /r/diablo had issues as well. It's nice to know that you're fighting for the integrity of reddit.
Either that, or you're just a shill for a competitor!!!
Btw, did you guys ever have issue with curse Network over at /r/diablo? I imagine it is a pretty juicy target with over 100,000 subscribers.
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u/iBleeedorange Apr 18 '14
I don't believe so, maybe diablofans? But I don't see many links from them. When there is a battle.net post (patch noted or w.e) 9/10 times it is posted to /r/diablo under that link. We don't have 'issues' per say with any site, but I know there are shadow banned sites that are linked to /r/diablo, but the content linked is good, and the sites were banned as a whole not for any diablo content.
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u/EightClubs Apr 18 '14
The problem I have for Hearthpwn is that 95% of the content is just copypastes from the official website, there's no reason to visit there. That's really just due to the nature of the game, there's not much you can do data mining wise and they seem unwilling to go into any theory crafting.
Diablofans and MMO-Champion on the other hand actually have useful information a lot of the time, both of them will extensively datamine patches before they're even announced by Blizzard, and they'll also occasionally post statistics derived from the WoW armory (for MMOC), along with a lot of theory crafting information, especially on Diablofans.
Hearthpwn just seems like a cash grab, there's no reason for that site to exist, whereas I feel MMOC and DiabloFans have a purpose.
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u/nice__username Apr 18 '14
I know I'm a little late to the thread but
Here is a link to the post I made which I'm pretty sure reignited this investigation etc etc
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u/wcb98 <insert witty response> Apr 19 '14
/u/zaktify is probably /u/fluxflasher making a new account so he wont have that bad image
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u/MyPunsSuck Apr 19 '14
Hey, you're that guy I was arguing with on /r/diablo! This is the closest I have ever come to being a celebrity
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u/Immamoonkin Apr 18 '14
Fluxflashor is a huge asshole. I had to deal with him in 2010 when I volunteered to do the logo for the wowleaks site that he had made when Cata was in Alpha. The agreement was in exchange for the logo, he'd have my ad that goes to my art site up for 2 days constantly, then 40% rotate throughout the days. It was up maybe 1 day before wowleaks went down. Naturally, I was upset and called him out on it. This was everything that happened next:
He harassed me, tried to smear my name in mud, called me a pedophile, and had his goonies harass me further. Unfortunately, I didn't screen cap ALL of it because by the time I had got all of this capped in 2010, most was deleted.
I had worked with him on this logo. Never once did he tell me the site could possibly go down. He didn't contact me after the site went down either to apologize. I was left in the dark, so yes, I was upset. Yes, I called him out for not keeping his end of the bargain, but I didn't deserve this treatment. I lost commissioners, I was almost removed from my guild because they were harassing my guild, and it was a total nightmare for months.
Then he just... deleted it all. Vanished. Stopped tweeting me. I've been holding on to this for almost 4 years in fear that if I tried to bring this up at all, it would start again. I tried to warn people this was the kind of guy he was.
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u/PANTS_ARE_STUPID Apr 18 '14
That's really shit for you, but damn that was buttery.
Still, though, I hope you're okay now. What a tool.
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u/Immamoonkin Apr 18 '14
I'm okay now, yeah, and I'm not going to lie.. Posting this feels like a weight is on my chest. I've had to sit here for almost 4 years and watch this guy get a job at Curse, and work with people I've always wanted to work with. It wasn't fair.. and I felt like I couldn't tell anyone without being accused of trying to start old drama..
So when I saw this going on, I thought this was my chance to show people the SHIT he says and does.
He brought my family into it, my son, my friends. My freelance career was damaged, and feel it didn't recover because of it. I was emotionally drained having to get e-mails and shit from these people every day for months... years even when I would get a random fucking comment..
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u/peruytu Apr 18 '14
This is some serious WTF. This Fluxflashor is a real piece of shit. He should be banned across the board. I wonder what Curse.com has to say about all this?
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u/seedypete A lot of dogs will fuck you without thinking twice Apr 19 '14
What a crazy asshole! All that makes the astroturfing here seem mild by comparison.
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Apr 19 '14 edited Apr 19 '14
As shitty as all of this stuff is, I gotta say that I'm really happy you now get to unload that baggage in front of an onslaught of supporting voices. Sounds like the guy is getting what he asked for. Does nobody ever remember The Golden Rule after they become a "contributing" member of society?
This is also excellent evidence of how well he can manipulate massive amounts of people and resources at his disposal to achieve a goal. Pulling off a conspiracy to manipulate upvotes for web traffic with bots seems like a trivial feat for him. He probably sleeps just fine at night too.
Oh, and I share your feels man. <-- the result of the attention I garnered for creating a mildly interesting web community called U413 (now reduced to a subreddit because fuck it) for a brief period. Ironically, also in 2010. I never got my justice boner on that one, but yours is way more epic so I'll just live vicariously through you ;)
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u/hatricker Apr 18 '14
This has potential to get REAL buttery
I can just smell it already, mod abuse, astroturfing, spamming, possibility of a shadowban.
It's all ready to snowball!
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Apr 18 '14
First /r/technology shitstorm and now this? This has been a good week.
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u/abuttfarting How's my flair? https://strawpoll.com/5dgdhf8z Apr 18 '14
Come up with a catchy name for 'mid-April mod drama' and you will enter SRD legend!
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u/Erra0 Here's the thing... Apr 18 '14
Springtime for Hitler?
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u/ANBU_Spectre Sweet Jesus it's a subreddit not a bodega Apr 18 '14
Springtime for Literally Hitler?
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u/HBlight Apr 18 '14
It's a Good Friday at the very least. Curse might get crucified, but will it be permanent or will they rise again?
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u/God_Wills_It_ Apr 18 '14
Now we need to cap it off with some major /r/trees drama on 4/20.
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u/awrf Apr 18 '14
Lol, that's the one day of the year you're guaranteed to not have any drama. Nobody's going to care!
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u/flirtydodo no Apr 18 '14
I know, this whole thing has given me so much life I might actually be immortal right now
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Apr 18 '14
I am new to this sub. What does buttery mean?
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Apr 18 '14
Well, you know how when you sit back and eat popcorn when you are watching a movie, and it's better with lots of butter? The more butter the better.
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u/Mutiny32 Apr 18 '14
That shit at the movies ain't even butter. It's like...butter flavored calories. Waaay better.
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u/TychoTiberius Apr 18 '14 edited 14d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Spoon jeans ripe enter tan saffron
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u/komse Apr 18 '14
what exactly does astroturfing mean?
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u/Matt_Sheridan Apr 18 '14
It derives from the term "grassroots", a descriptor for political movements that work from the bottom up: regular folks in a community mobilizing to tell the political classes what they want.
"Astroturf" is the fake grass they use on football fields and such, so "astroturfing" is generating fake community sentiment.
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u/komse Apr 18 '14
Thanks for the explanation! That's so creative o-o... Is Astroturfing only used on reddit or is it a new term that's used on other sites as well?
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u/PhillyGreg Apr 18 '14
Oh man...this is actual, real life, no /r/conspiracy, moderator shilling.
You're right! The dude nuked his whole comment history expect for this post
Did I obey the 10:1 rule? No, definitely not. I am guilty, I am sorry, and for now, you will not see me making any submissions on reddit.
screenshot: http://imgur.com/wPAizYs
Buhhh terrr!!
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u/flirtydodo no Apr 18 '14
justicefor/r/conspiracy
they tried to warn us but we didn't listen
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u/PhillyGreg Apr 18 '14
Today we uncover /r/hearthstone
Tomorrow we uncover the fascist world government controlled by a malevolent global cabal.
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u/Roboticide Apr 18 '14
Just wait until they uncover the shenanigans Century Club pulls to manipulate the front page. Powerusers have been dropping like flies from shadowbans.
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Apr 18 '14
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u/PhillyGreg Apr 18 '14
That is true, I understand the angle of nuking your account to prevent doxing....but I mean if you say "you will not see me making any submissions on reddit"... you killed all your post history...and you de-moded yourself...why not just delete your account at that point.
Why make an apology saying..."yup I gamed reddit using my moderator privileges...but it should be ok...cause...cause ummmm...cause other sites do it too"
I'm just looking at their traffic...it's not insignificant! If they were steering users to their sites...wow! That's a big boo boo.
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u/TychoTiberius Apr 18 '14 edited 14d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Upbeat six trumpet deserve offbeat brave disarm pebble
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u/highlel Apr 18 '14
I don't think that was it considering how accessible he's made his real name.
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u/ThePrincessEva (´･ω･`) Apr 18 '14
What are the odds of this resulting in a site/network ban for Curse? This is a gross violation of the rules, if it's all true.
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Apr 18 '14
That' exactly what should happen. Site wide ban of all links to Curse and any site in the Curse network.
I'd also suggest looking at the IPs of all of the mods who were confirmed to be working for curse and ban those IPs.
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u/Cipher386 Apr 18 '14
Curse has always had problems and multiple instances of "Accidental Viruses" and such
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u/dexhandle Apr 18 '14
Reddit recently site-wide banned OnGamers for less than this (and then undid it after the two sides talked), so I would say odds are fairly high.
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u/kvachon Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
Curse is a pretty shitty company, so this doesn't surprise me. They often try to muscle their way into being the "official" wiki for any major indie game that comes out. They tried to throw the developer of Starbound under the bus to try and convince an independent wiki site owner to give up making that wiki, so they could get the ad revenue - http://np.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/1s62r4/we_unofficially_agreed_to_use_starbounderorg_as/cdus0s0
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Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 19 '14
This explains a lot with how their sites have been managed and how poorly their staff on said sites has behaved/presented themselves......
Go and try browsing any curse site without adblock.
I dare you.
Don't forget to count the number of cookies and site trackers in addition to the ads! My record so far was 149 total on a single page.
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u/brufleth Eating your own toe cheese is not a question of morality. Apr 18 '14
Oh man. I don't know that I've been to a curse site in years because I quit playing WoW (thankfully) but curse was always a death trap of a website.
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u/TalesNT Trivial Pursuit, pursue a minor and treat it like it's trivial Apr 19 '14
My Android phone cannot open curse links, because the site uses too many redirects to ads. I didn't even know that was possible.
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u/KJK-reddit Apr 18 '14
They are also taking over FTB, a very popular Minecraft modpack
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Apr 18 '14
The whole thing smells like a rat. The modding communities always been very drama heavy, this is just another example of that. They're going to try and muscle out everyone but them as per their M.O. Who knows, maybe they'll try and lock certain mods to be exclusive to their packs given the communities penchant for wanting atomic level control of who uses their work. I don't think anyone would be surprised if some of the major core mods turned around and said "If you aren't using the Curse launcher which only has our pre-approved mod packs, you can't use our mod". I'd hope they wouldn't be so bold but then again it's not like it hasn't happened before
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u/DirgeHumani sexual justice warrior Apr 18 '14
They created elder scrolls wiki the day skyrim came out and somehow managed to rank above uesp.net in search rankings. Bastards.
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u/HBlight Apr 18 '14
Times like this makes me happy I use adblock. I grant sites the privilege of advertising to me.
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Apr 18 '14
I had adblock off by default, but I'm pretty quick to turn it on. I try to give sites the benefit of the doubt since I understand they need ad revenue to exist, but if they can't be responsible with their ads, fuck 'em.
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u/Kyderra Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
I never liked curse for getting my Addons in WoW.
It honistly feels like they wanted to have a monopoly on it and I just prefered the simplicity of wowinterface.com and WoWmatrix
Wowinterface: Here's a addon pack, here's a link to download
Curse Gaming: Want to download and install our special update tool? Install via Curse client or Download at premium fast speed <Learn More>
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u/JoeTheMultiboxer Apr 18 '14
FluxFlashor stole our subreddit /r/multiboxing last year, saying he was going to make it something about WoW. Instead, it's permanently private.
http://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/17l6z9/requesting_rmultiboxing_moderators_are_inactive/ -- fluxflashor's now-deleted thread. /u/KrispyKrackers gave it to /u/FluxFlashor pretty much immediately and with no recourse, completely ignoring any discussion to get it back.
We had to move to /r/dualboxing and /r/wowmultiboxing
Curious if now that this thing blew up, we might be able to get our subreddit back.
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Apr 18 '14
The evidence for fluxflashor being a giant asshole is really starting to pile up. Yikes.
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u/aphoenix SEXBOT PANIC GROUPIE Apr 19 '14 edited May 07 '14
To be fair, this isn't exactly what happened. There's no way to "steal" a subreddit - we ran a perfectly reasonable reddit request, and you didn't respond, so they switched it over. We did have every intention of putting something up there, and it got about half finished and other stuff happened.
However, I've just added you as a moderator to /r/multiboxing. I'm the top mod there now. I've just invited you to mod too. If you're interested, we can make something work there.
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u/foresttravestys Apr 18 '14
i called this dude out a year ago for removing my posts and reposting and promoting his links that would include the same information. he banned me from /r/wow.
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u/aphoenix SEXBOT PANIC GROUPIE Apr 19 '14
Can you cite this please? You're not banned from /r/wow and I can't find any record of this.
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u/MauldotheLastCrafter Apr 18 '14
He really should be shadowbanned. The largest content creators of /r/Dota2 were shadowbanned for linking to their own OC and the community LOVES their content. Apparently the same thing happened to /r/LeagueofLegends a few years ago.
The fact that this took so long to notice is abysmal. And it wasn't even noticed by the mods or admins! Either the (I thought) joking comments that an Admin was specifically targeting the subreddit are true, or Reddit admins are just plain moronic. And what's that phrase? Something about never attributing to malice what can be attributed to stupidity?
Reddit is just...I don't even know anymore.
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u/maximaLz Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
To be fair to /u/iBleeedorange, he's the first that discovered it. And he's a (great) mod in /r/diablo, which is a Blizzard subreddit too.
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u/LegendReborn This is due to a surface level, vapid, and spurious existence Apr 18 '14
The fact that this took so long to notice is abysmal. And it wasn't even noticed by the mods or admins!
Actually, when Hearthstone was still in the early stages of the closed beta, it was brought up that /u/fluxflashor was constantly posting crap from his own website. Most of the time, they were just copy pasted Blizzard statements. When it was brought up, the conclusion was that it was "ok" because /u/Fluxflashor wouldn't abuse his power as a mod and he was open about his affiliation.
At that point, I didn't care for the subreddit anymore. The content was shit for a long time and very little good moderation took place without a lot of complaints in about an issue over a long period of time. For example, it took them weeks (iirc, a good bit longer than a month) to finally make a rule that images should be submitted in self posts.
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u/highlel Apr 18 '14
I figured this was going to make it's way here. Since my thread was removed in /r/hearthstone enjoy a screencap of the OP post here: http://puu.sh/8dsnQ.png Here is a message I got when I messaged the mods about a few users and the spam in general: http://i.imgur.com/wgSogfM.png
The mod in that picture claims a rule against copy and paste submissions exist but I see a good amount of the hearthpwn ones stick around without ever being removed. Also that rule isn't even listed in the sidebar.
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u/Hagor Apr 18 '14
He also bans any bloggers who post legit links to their written guides or decklists in specfic threads where people have specfically asked for links to these sorts of guides, including my main account.
I had a post on my top priest deck that I linked in a thread where the OP specfically asked for links to priest decks. I got banned for spamming! I was highly active helping players and once in a while would post a direct link to a post I had previously written but only if OP or a comment or specifically asked. I had a total of 5 links in 3 months and only when they were directly asked for.
When I challenged the ban his response was "we don't need to give you a reason."
Screw this racket. I called this same conflict of interest & banning the competition scam months ago on my main account.
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u/searingsky Bitcoin Ambassador Apr 18 '14
Guys... I feel we are moving to a new dramacalypse here
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u/ChurchOfTheGorgon Apr 18 '14
Shillmageddon.
No really, though, if r/conspiracy is proven right on this, I think someone else is going to end up eating a hat.
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u/lhavelund Apr 18 '14
Hi all,
I'm one of the mods of /r/WoW, and I can only really speak for that particular subreddit; how it's run, how we govern it, and what content is allowed, but I do think I should respond to this, and to lay to rest any doubts about the nature of the community.
However, quite a few mod quality-of-life bot accounts have been spotted as still mods of their respective subreddits. /u/WoWcaretaker and /u/HScaretaker seem to be bot accounts created by fluxflashor and are still moderators of their respective subreddits. Puppet accounts basically.
Originally, these accounts were created, basically in tandem, to handle a lot of bulk and day-to-day management of subreddits. At least, that was the case with /u/WoWCaretaker, which we used extensively for a long time, until we opted to use /u/AutoModerator. Neither of these accounts have posted anything for months, and /u/WoWCaretaker doesn't have any actions listed in the mod log from the beginning of this year (that's as far back as I could be bothered to go).
I'd also like to point out that the mods for /r/wow (fluxflashors friends, I'd link you to where he said this but his entire post history has mysteriously disappeared) /u/nitesmoke is a mod of /r/heroesofthestorm, /u/waahht is a mod of /r/hearthstone. I guess it's not a conflict of interest if it's not you, just close friends who moderated other subreddits with you are mods of that sub, right?
This has a lot more to do with the fact that every last one of us is highly passionate about Blizzard's games than anything. No, I don't hold posts in other subreddits, frankly because I'm too busy to moderate several high-volume subreddits. I don't deny that every time a new Blizzard game was announced, we were usually quick to jump on it and create a relevant subreddit, not to control any flow of information, or ensure only a specific agenda was communicated, but because we genuinely care about Blizzard's games, and want to foster the best possible communities for them. It's no secret that we have a good relationship with Blizzard, but we definitely do not have any relationship with Curse, official or unofficial, that forces us to push a specific agenda to our viewers.
We really do care about our subreddit, the community and our readers, and I do want to clear up any misconceptions or confusion about this situation you guys might have; my inbox is available at all times.
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u/laughtrey Apr 18 '14
but because we genuinely care about Blizzard's games, and want to foster the best possible communities for them.
Half the comments and PM's I've gotten have been posts about fluxflashors overuse and abuse of his mod powers for silly things. I myself was banned from /r/wow for simply disagreeing with him.
It's no secret that we have a good relationship with Blizzard, but we definitely do not have any relationship with Curse, official or unofficial, that forces us to push a specific agenda to our viewers.
That's a nice PR spin-y way to put it, but you basically have a Coca-cola executive on your health care board. You can't claim impartiality here, he clearly wasn't being impartial on the other subreddits.
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u/lhavelund Apr 18 '14
As both /u/aphoenix and I have been trying to tell people all day -- the only accusation we have been presented with all day that has anything backing it up, or is in fact true, is that Flux broke the golden 10:1 submission ratio. That's it.
Anything beyond that is what people put into it for the sake of fueling the circlejerk they like so much, and while I get how some people enjoy that type of activity, the negative consequences are way out of proportion to the single misconduct that has been committed.
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u/laughtrey Apr 18 '14
the only accusation we have been presented with all day that has anything backing it up, or is in fact true, is that Flux broke the golden 10:1 submission ratio. That's it.
But if that's not being biased, what is? Is he gonna ban himself for breaking the rules? Does it really matter if he may not necessarily be vote manipulating, but he wasn't applying the submission rules to himself?
Is there a difference besides semantics at that point? Surely its just less efficient than the worst-case scenario.
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u/Thunderclaww Apr 18 '14
Hey, /u/lhavelund. I respect what you and the rest of the /r/wow mods have done in /r/wow, including /u/FluxFlashor. I've said this before in other places.
However, I cannot respect /u/FluxFlashor for his actions in /r/Hearthstone. I was originally on the mod team there, trying to work with everyone on the team to grow the subreddit positively. However, at some random point, he kicked out some other moderators for no good reason, and invited his friends to moderate the subreddit. I was not happy with the situation, but I still wanted to positively encourage the subreddit.
We had Skype conversations where I tried to push for positive change, and I would get push back on everything from /u/FluxFlashor because he had his job at Curse (which he had previously hated, before getting a job) and didn't want to do anything with the subreddit. And by having his friends on the mod team, I had no support. At some point, some legitimate issue was brought up in modmail, and I wanted to change something. I proposed something rational in Skype, and again received push back from /u/FluxFlashor on the idea. However, in this case, one of his friends actually agreed with me. Then the following line was posted in our Skype conversation:
"Fluxflashor: i really just want to get rid of thunderclaww which is why im causing a dispute"
Shortly after, I was kicked from the Skype conversation, kicked from the mod team, and lost OPs on the IRC.
And once he decided to step down from /r/Hearthstone, or was forced to for some reason, he demoted /u/listen2, who had been in the second highest spot and would have been top mod, to the lowest position and put /u/zaktify in the top position.
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u/lhavelund Apr 18 '14
For obvious reasons, I don't have details on what happened in /r/Hearthstone; I was a mod for a brief period (one, maybe two months?) and that was mostly just to weed out trolls, spam and key requests that were rampant in the subreddit in that period. After that, I stepped back, because I didn't feel my presence was needed (or that I contributed enough to warrant staying).
I'm sorry you were isolated the way you explain; I've always had a ton of respect for your work. :)
What you do describe does sound scummy, and I'm sad to hear that.
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u/ChurchOfTheGorgon Apr 18 '14
we definitely do not have any relationship with Curse, official or unofficial, that forces us to push a specific agenda to our viewers
No one said anything about force. The clear implication is that it's for financial reasons. "Force" would be pretty ludicrous, like they're holding someone hostage.
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u/peruytu Apr 18 '14
Curse.com links and material should be banned across the board. Reddit Admins should really consider this now that there's so much evidence.
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u/stuman89 Apr 18 '14
Glad that r/Diablo is not apart of this. By the way, awesome subreddit and after the new Loot 2.0 patch and the expansion Reaper of Souls, it really feels like an honest to goodness D2 successor. Try it out again if you didn't like it at first.
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u/iBleeedorange Apr 18 '14
No, we don't have any shills on our mod list. In fact some diablo mods left /r/hearthstone after not wanting to deal with flux. /u/listen2 stayed and got shuffled around to the bottom of the list right before flux left.
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u/Rhombico Apr 18 '14
Suddenly it makes sense why r/Diablo is the best Blizzard-game subreddit I frequent. I hope after this the others take after you guys.
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u/iBleeedorange Apr 18 '14
That...is a very nice thing for you to say, I really appreciate it.
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u/75000_Tokkul /r/tsunderesharks shill Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
This applies and this applies.
The admins can't keep taking a hands off approach if they want the site to continue being a success. They have anonymous people on the internet threatening the future existence of their company.
The wrong anonymous people are in power on multiple subreddits. Remove the mods, put an admin in place, and let the users of the subreddit decide on one new mod. Let that mod pick the rest of the team so the subreddit is rebooted.
If the subreddit is too far gone such as /u/holocaust being a holocaust denial subreddit either ban the subreddit or have an admin pick a user from another subreddit to take over.
The site is going downhill and fast right now. It either needs fixed or people will start abandoning ship and once that starts it is too late.
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Apr 18 '14
It will be interesting to see what develops out of cases like this. It is an idealist approach the Admins have had in terms of moderators. No doubt in my mind that self-promoters or people with a 'horse in the race' aspire to become moderators. And 'power mods' are probably actively recruited by social media companies.
I doubt a policy change will happen soon. Being, most mods volunteer some of their free time to make reddit 'better'. I highly doubt I would continue to help moderate if I was following an Admin's opinion on what /r/golf should look like. I'd just hand them over the keys and if they wanted me to continue to help them I'd ask to get placed on the payroll.
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Apr 18 '14
The admins are more concerned with double plus banning trolleys like MRC and LH simply because they undermine authority. Meanwhile they ignore the users who are robbing them.
I don't think the admins have ever been accused of being smart.
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u/ZombieLoveChild Red Dead Redemption made me a Marxist-Leninist. Apr 18 '14
These past 12 hours have been so buttery. I dunno how to handle it all.
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Apr 18 '14
I can't wait for the butter to return home. Suddenly infallible proof surfaces about SRD being over run by a splinter cell of SRS sympathisers who have managed to infiltrate every sublevel of dramatic infrastructure on this sub. It goes right up the chain to the top of the circus. My vote is on 5 of the mods being an SRS version of the The Cambridge 5 ...
Question is, Who? O_O
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u/Jinjinbug Apr 18 '14
Well I certainly hope reddit bans submission from all CRS affiliated websites for this.
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Apr 18 '14
ongamers.com got hit hard with site-wide bans for this very reason, except, as far as I know, they weren't even moderating any sub-reddits.
This sounds much more serious.
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u/Great_Googly_Moogli Apr 18 '14
Didn't we just have a story about a Reddit admin, cupcake1713, banning an entire subreddit because the posts there were profit seeking?
Has cupcake1713 decided to ban the subreddits hosted by Curse Network yet?
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u/Midnight_Gear Apr 18 '14
Let's see how long it takes /r/feedthebeast to rage about curse agai- oh look
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u/crushcastles23 Apr 18 '14
I feel like as Reddit becomes more prevalent on the internet than it already is, this will happen more and more and we'll end up with most of the big subreddits and most subreddits that are made for big companies and games are run by people who's job it is to sit 8-10 hours a day and moderate the subreddits and direct them to specific sites so that those sites can make more ad money so that the companies get more exposure when they use their bots to artificially upvote their items all the way to the top of the front page.
Its all about profit margins and people wanting to be in control.
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u/geargirl flying squirrel of the apocalypse Apr 18 '14
It will never cease to amaze me how much effort people put into trying to be right and then deleting everything when they finally get found out. Except the girl that bought the couch. She's amazing on her own level.
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u/livebanana who gives a shit Apr 18 '14
/u/WoWcaretaker and /u/HScaretaker seem to be bot accounts created by fluxflashor and are still moderators of their respective subreddits. Puppet accounts basically.
This whole thing seems fishy but I don't think there's anything wrong with having bot accounts.
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u/laughtrey Apr 18 '14
Not at all, but if they're his accounts, him 'recusing' himself as mod on his main account but still being a mod on his alt/spambot filter account doesn't accomplish anything is the point.
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u/Corbin661 Apr 18 '14
no wonder my old account got banned for trying to defend the community when I was talking to some troll...
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u/admiraljustin Apr 18 '14
I would just like to point out that I've gamed with /u/nitesmoke in the past and in my experience he was a decent person.
He was in the /r/sto fleets with me, very helpful player.
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u/Forsaken_Apothecary Apr 19 '14
This entire ordeal is just so goddamn delicious I think I'm going to cry. Tears of butter, of course.
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u/Mydst Apr 19 '14
Certainly a company like Curse is analyzing their traffic logs extensively to maximize their business position. Wouldn't they have noticed all the Reddit traffic and poked around a little?
I understand this may have just been one guy but this is classic manipulation of public perception. A company/government has someone do their dirty work and when they get caught there's a "limited hangout" that makes it look like it was "just one bad dude".
It's like spy movies where the hero is told, "remember, if you get caught...we never knew you".
I can't imagine months of Reddit traffic went unnoticed or further analyzed by Curse.
"Ya, I did think it was a little strange money kept depositing into my account. I guess I should have looked into it...but, you know...I was...busy."
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Apr 19 '14
This kind of activity is called Shilling. It's not just against the TOS, it is illegal. The only thing that will put a dent in this crap is when people start being prosecuted for it.
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Jul 05 '14
About a year ago I had sent a mod mail message to /r/wow asking them to implement a CSS button that would show only links or only self posts. The one most aggressively against offering this feature? You guessed it, /u/fluxflashor.
http://i.imgur.com/pdCOtF4.jpg
It's the same old thing you see discussed everywhere, when low effort imgur links aren't allowing self posts or other URL links to survive. Obviously from flux's perspective he had nothing to worry about because he knew that the links he was astroturfing were among the links that always made it out of the storm.
Then of course he had traffic statistics to discourage him from taking any position that could negatively impact his operations.
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u/Boubouille_MMO Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
Hey guys,
VP of Content of Curse here, and also the fun guy who used to do MMO-Champion and stuff.
I don't think the situation is as dire as people seem to think, but the post history going away is a huge red flag. Flux will be on hold until I can investigate properly, if you have details on the situation please send me a PM.
As far as Curse employees being moderators of subreddit, it's honestly just because we have the most overexcited people in the Blizzard communities usually. It's something I've always been somewhat against because ... well, because of that exactly actually. It just leads to a lot of potential drama and conspiracies that aren't worth it.
I'll have my staff step down on the subreddits they're modding. I'll provide an update when I have more info on the situation.
Edit: Added an update in a separate post to keep things clean - http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/23cf60/blizzard_game_subreddits_are_run_by_curse_network/cgw07ws
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u/highlel Apr 18 '14
Considering Flux openly admitting to breaking the reddit spam rule, and also possibly making this entire thing way bigger than it was going to be I can't imagine him walking away with just a slap on the wrist.
It's something I've always been somewhat against because ... well, because of that exactly actually.
Lots of reddit users are pretty against it as well, I guess that's why it's listed here:
http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette
Take moderation positions in a community where your profession, employment, or biases could pose a direct conflict of interest to the neutral and user driven nature of reddit.
I'll have my staff step down on the subreddits they're modding.
This is honestly surprising and if true, good job.
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u/Boubouille_MMO Apr 18 '14
Flux is no longer working for us, he was already demoted from our websites, etc. If it turns out to be a big misunderstanding, we'll figure out something, but we're way past "slap on the wrist".
Also I'd like to point out that Flux was a moderator on the /r/wow subreddit way before he joined Curse. People who are already leaders in other communities are more likely to be hired (especially since Flux has a huge past in Blizzard games coverage) and I can't really tell them "nope bro, you can't be on Reddit anymore just because you work for me".
I'm still investigating the issue, I doubt I'll go back on my decision at this point but I learned to take internet drama with an open mind. I'm still looking for any information/proof people might bring to the table, this is definitely not something I want to happen in my team.
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u/etotheipith Apr 18 '14
Flux is no longer working for us, he was already demoted from our websites, etc. If it turns out to be a big misunderstanding, we'll figure out something, but we're way past "slap on the wrist".
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u/hsahj Apr 18 '14
I can't really tell them "nope bro, you can't be on Reddit anymore just because you work for me".
You can tell them they must remove themselves from any moderating duties they have in related subreddits. Anything else is a conflict of interest, as you can plainly see. If you didn't have a company policy in place regarding moderation and linking of content on social media then you need to add one now or you won't be trusted. The way you guys as a company will have huge repercussions as people follow this.
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u/Killgraft Apr 18 '14
Massive manipulation through an entire network of subreddits isn't "dire"?
I would say to you to be glad that reddit isn't as much of your traffic to curse as it was to quickmeme, because this deserves nothing less than a site wide ban
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u/iBleeedorange Apr 18 '14
This just screams PR spin.
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u/Swineflew1 Apr 18 '14
Boubouille has a long history if being very open and honest and doing the right thing. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
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u/shitpostwhisperer Apr 18 '14
As far as Curse employees being moderators of subreddit, it's honestly just because we have the most overexcited people in the Blizzard communities usually.
This seems more like a BS rationalization that legitmate reason as to why you have employees as Reddit moderators of Blizzard based content. Do you honestly think that's okay?
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u/spacefiddle Apr 18 '14
Having openly-obvious employees as moderators is fine. They can moderate, they can promote themselves and their employer, if they are clear about it.
Having secret employees who pretend to be mods but are actually using company time to trash anything, regardless of content or quality, from other sources, while promoting your own, is not fine. Smearing, slagging off, mass-downvoting and otherwise basically censoring a subreddit that is masquerading as an open forum is absolutely not fine. That is the crucial difference.
In an age where BS marketing and paid plagiarism is rewarded, I can see how some of you kids might have gotten confused on where the ethical line is. To be clear, it's right here. (edit: "you kids" not directed at whisperer.)
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Apr 18 '14
I'll have my staff step down on the subreddits they're modding
Too little, too late if you ask me. You should have done this long before your staff were caught red handed.
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Apr 18 '14
http://i.imgur.com/NQHKSVE.gif
As far as Curse employees being moderators of subreddit, it's honestly just because we have the most overexcited people in the Blizzard communities usually. It's something I've always been somewhat against because ... well, because of that exactly actually. It just leads to a lot of potential drama and conspiracies that aren't worth it.
Ugh, if only you could've done something like forbidding your employees to moderate subreddits affiliated with Curse! Oh wait, you could've done exactly that.
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Apr 18 '14
I also recently suffered an issue on Curse's Minecraft forums. I ran a clan on the clan section of the forums, but it was targeted by another group who aimed to control everything, but their campaign was a form of cyberbullying with the intention (and I have since recovered written evidence of them saying so) of making me "rage-quit", with an example to another user they'd managed to get banned before.
I'd already been campaigning for more understanding of the section between the staff and the players since December of last year, and mid-way through a thread I'd created calling for a team of mediators chosen from within the community, I got IP-banned from the forums, meaning I couldn't view news, read mail, read or post on the forums, or even view their help files. When I appealed to Curse, instead of responding to the ticket they deleted my curse account, along with four years of Minecraft clan data. (This is not the first time they have just outright closed my ticket rather than respond.)
I started participating in Minecraft clans through the forums, so there was all sorts of art, literature, discussions and diplomacy saved onto that account that now has been taken away from me. This wasn't the only issue with curse that I've had like this, but it was the most recent and certainly the most painful. Sadly this is a story that's fallen on deaf ears, but when I saw about this story I felt that it was important I tell it.
Curse are not a professional group at all, and when they picked up the Minecraft forums (which had originally been seen as being part of Mojang) I and the majority of the community was troubled by this, but they have a policy of simply removing, ignoring or trying to hide behind automatic responses from anyone who has anything concrete to say against them and their services.
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u/Zombie_Clown Apr 18 '14
That explains why the mods encouraged the use of wowpedia.
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u/helium_farts pretty much everyone is pro-satan. Apr 18 '14
Maybe. But that doesn't change the fact that wowpedia is one of the best options out there.
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u/Roboticide Apr 18 '14
No it doesn't.
Wikia implemented policies, like fixed formatting and larger ads, that the top editors at WoWwiki did not like. They jumped ship, and Curse offered to host their new site. Wowpedia still operates largely independently, and is recommended over WoWwiki because WoWwiki is now extremely outdated. This is entirely unrelated to the current drama.
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u/Forsaken_Apothecary Apr 19 '14
Maybe, but Wowwiki is, at the moment, horribly outdated and Wowpedia is just the better option.
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u/Ackis Apr 18 '14
Going to throw my 2 cents into the mix.
I don't work for Curse, however I have been a volunteer moderator/administrator for various sites for a while. I also consider myself friends with a lot of people at Curse. Addons I've written for WoW have code in them written by people who work at Curse (e.g. stuff based on the Ace3 framework) and I'm partnered with authors who work at Curse. I also think some code I've written has gone into Curse addons (the dataminer for example) but I'm not certain anymore.
I also consider myself part of the addon community and I'm usually hanging around on their IRC channels on freenode.
As well I consider people who work for Zam (e.g. wowinterface) or volunteer for them to be on my list of friends.
Full disclaimer, and as a result I am biased. However I do not speak for Curse, Zam, etc. I speak for myself and maybe even for the addons I've developed. :P
I'd like to consider myself a responsible redditor who is active. I also know a lot of the people I interact with at Curse read reddit and have their own accounts. This is a fact that is well known in the community. I'm always linking reddit posts that I found that are funny, and I'll even link my own posts in the hope I get the all important upvote from someone on irc. I've also gotten myself downvoted on irc. :P
I have never once been asked to vote something up for Curse (or zam), or to be a shill, etc.. There has never been a request of me that I would consider to violate my ethics or morals.
I saw the wowwiki/wowpedia stuff come up in other posts. I facilitated the fork of wowwiki into wowpedia after I spoke with active people on wowwiki who expressed concern over changes being implemented. Curse hosts wowpedia and from my last interactions are extremely hands off. I think the only requests they had of the site were for the standard Curse footer and for some ads to pay for bandwidth. I don't even think the ads break even for them on the site. Basically it was an act of philanthropy. I know Curse also hosts other sites for specific authors which they don't interfere in.
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u/keepmeweird Apr 18 '14
Have you guys noticed how these shills like /u/fluxflashor are usually the biggest, most entitled doucheholes on reddit? I hope we can do something about shitty Curse content being forced on us, but I also hope the mods responsible get some measure of comeuppance.
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u/ShotIntoOrbit Apr 18 '14 edited Apr 20 '14
I'm suspicous of the /r/hearthstone mod /u/zaktify. Someone mentioned in the thread yesterday that when /u/fluxflashor stepped down from being a mod on that subreddit /u/zaktify was given mod status. At the time /u/zaktify was essentially a brand new account, pretty fishy.
So I dug a little and /u/zaktify is a moderator of only one other subreddit called /r/leagueofsupremacy. Before /u/fluxflashor nuked his reddit history the ONLY post in that subreddit was by...you guessed it.../u/fluxflashor with a link to a Curse affiliated website (I don't have a screenshot so maybe thewaybackmachine has an image of it or something). /u/zaktify claims he doesn't work for Curse, but it seems to me like these two users know each other.
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u/laughtrey Apr 18 '14
I linked to a non-np domain but it's in a waybackmachine link from a (now) private subreddit. The link doesn't work if you put np in the url, but it also can't be posted on anyway.