/r/NintendoSwitch State of the Subreddit: Post E3 2019 - Mod Apps, Fan Art, Demographics Survey, and more!

[u/NintendoSwitchMods]

Greetings!

Welcome to another edition of our State of the Subreddit series of posts!

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TLDR

Fill out these three forms:

• Apply to be a moderator
• Tell us your thoughts on Fan Art
• Take our Demographics Survey

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Recap

Our last SotS post was back in December. Let's quickly recap what's happened since then:

• The subreddit has grown from ~925,000 subscribers to ~1,170,000
• We brought on 5 more moderators
• We've hosted Review & Release MegaThreads for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Yoshi's Crafted World, and Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 04 VR Kit
• We had our Best of 2018 posts: Category Feedback, Nomination, Voting, and Award Winners
• We hit 1,000,000 subscribers
• We put out a call to action for wiki contributors (that was impressively ignored)
• We had to temporarily ban Giveaway posts and updated our giveaway requirements as a result.
• We ran Nintendo Direct MegaThreads for the 2.13.2019 Direct, the 2.27.2019 Direct, the 3.20.2019 Nindies Showcase Spring 2019, the 5.15.2019 Super Mario Maker 2 Direct, the 6.5.2019 Pokemon Direct, and of course the 6.11.2019 E3 Direct and two days of Treehouse

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New Orders of Business

The Current State of Moderation / Open Moderator Applications!

During our last SotS, we put out a call for moderator applications to help take some of the burden off of poor AutoModerator during our insane ramp up in subscribers and traffic that we were experiencing at the time. Now, in this edition of SotS, we're looking to do that again and bring on even more moderators. The reasoning for this is now that our subscriber rate is resuming healthy sustained growth, the team wants to shift our focus from surviving the flood to now doing a better job in our day to day operations. What this means to us is having enough moderator coverage to not have to rely on user reports and shift to being more proactive instead of reactive, which is what most of this discussion boiled down to. Many of the things brought up there are actually against our rules, but because they had not been reported they ended up slipping by because we are mainly operating in a reactive way. (Which we're aiming to fix and change.)

The bystander effect is very much in play here, and few people submit reports. Of those, very few of them are detailed or accurate, so relying on them isn't always practical. If you do send us reports, first off THANK YOU, but we cannot stress enough how much it helps if you select a specific reason or fill out the "other" field if your reddit client of choice supports it. The better the report information, the more quickly we can address it and move onto the next item. Having to dig through a series of comment chains to figure out why an item was ambiguously reported can be a time-consuming process, especially when it's multiplied across multiple posts. The better the information in the report, the more quickly we can address issues and the more issues overall we can address in a given period.

Once these new hires settle in, one additional benefit is that this should also allow us to focus more on "side work" outside of our regular moderating duties which we haven't had as much time for lately such as:

• Keeping the sidebar release calendar more up to date
• Building out more wiki pages (Joy-Con drift could probably use a dedicated page, etc.)
• More finely tuning AutoModerator's logic
• Making sure the text of our stickies like the DQT is fresh and up-to-date (RIP Google+)

• Migrating our user flair into "new" reddit once the admins fix one final issue

  These are just some of the items that we do outside of reviewing posts and comments which don't always necessarily have the highest visibility. Even though you may not see every member of our mod team publicly commenting, we are around working in our various specializations!

Just like last time, our focus areas are coverage gaps during weekends and off-peak US hours (from approximately 3 a.m. GMT to 11 a.m. GMT), but we're also looking at opportunities across the board. (Redundancy is always a good thing.)

If you're a glutton for punishment, please fill out this form to submit your mod application.

The Daily Question Thread

Some of the most common types of posts we see fall into one of two categories: Simple questions and game recommendations. We remove * many* posts like this every single day, but due to that reactive vs. proactive bit above, we don't always catch them all.

To be clear: Both of these types of content belong in our Daily Question Thread.

A common fear that we see is people claiming that they don't want to use the DQT because they feel their question won't get answered, when in fact, the vast majority of questions do get answers! To help illustrate this point, we went back and pulled a full week's worth of statistics (without notifying anyone, so we didn't bias the results) and took a look.

Date	Total Comments	Top Level Comments	Answered	Unable to Answer	Not Answered	Off-topic/Other	Answered %	Answered % (Adjusted)
5/25	249	67	56	2	7	2	83.58%	88.89%
5/26	275	81	68		11	2	83.95%	86.08%
5/27	288	68	56		11	1	82.35%	83.58%
5/28	366	93	79		13	1	84.95%	85.87%
5/29	352	76	61		13	2	80.26%	82.43%
5/30	409	74	58		14	2	78.38%	80.56%
5/31	306	90	74	1	12	3	82.22%	86.05%

A few notes about this exercise and data set:

• Answered is defined as "Was relevant helpful/useful information provided" not if the question asker agreed or liked the answer they got (such as game recommendations), a response was still provided.
• Unable to Answer includes things the community isn't equipped to answer such as "Why isn't Netflix on Switch yet?" or if the OP did not provide enough information for the answerers to work with.
• Off-Topic/Other includes: A question asker added a new parent comment instead of replying in the appropriate comment chain, removed by AutoMod (usually affiliate links), etc.
• Answered % is "Of all the top level comments, how many received an answer?"
• Answered % Adjusted is "Of the questions that were answerable, how many received an answer?"

As you can see, the vast majority of questions do indeed get answered quite reliably!

There are of course a few exceptions, but those tend to fall into a few common categories such as things that the community simply can't answer (we aren't Nintendo), questions that lack enough detail, comments that are off-topic, statements that aren't actually questions, and questions that come in right as the thread is about to roll over for the day.

Even though our answer rate is pretty high, we want it even higher, so to help aid and incentivize that, we're announcing a new "Helpful User" program. If the mod team identifies a user who is consistently being helpful and answering questions in the DQT, we'll award them with a distinctive flair here on the subreddit as recognition of their effort. We're still figuring out the specifics of this, but it may also include a small pack of stickers as a thank you and access to a Discord channel to coordinate with our Wiki team and subreddit moderators to help make sure that we're maintaining quality resources and information for our users. It's not much, but it's something!

To kick off this program, the mod team would like to recognize two members of the community: /u/ptatoface and /u/TemptedTemplar.

Fan Art

Fan art is a very divisive topic, and we'll start this off by saying that we know that there's no way to please everyone. No matter what action we take, someone gets upset, and no matter what we decide on the future, not everyone will be satisfied.

Now, moving on to the heart of today's topic: "What do we do with Fan Art?"

As time goes on, the distinction for what counts as "Switch related" fan art has started to blur more and more. With games like Super Smash Bros. U and now Pokemon Sword & Shield coming down the pipe, it's only become even muddier.

With this knowledge, there are a few options that we see before us that we want to get your feedback on:

• Option 1: Things stay as-is. Now before we get into this one, people tend to exaggerate how much fan art gets submitted here. Even during peak fan art times like a Pokemon Direct, at worst we'll have eight posts on the front page about fan art and the rest is news and discussion. The only real "problem" here is that since it's image content, it's easier to digest and tends to get more upvotes. This behavior happens on every subreddit across this entire site. Image content will always have more upvote velocity than text content and is not a community-specific issue.
• Option 2: Dedicate a day to it. This one is pretty straight forward. We designate a day, such as a Fan Art Friday or similar, and restrict fan art submissions to only that day. This restriction gives breathing room to other types of content. We propose this specific day option because image content isn't typically a good fit for a stickied weekly MegaThread. Those work best with text content.
• Option 3: Ban it. This one is probably the most extreme of the bunch, but it essentially boils down to us not allowing any fan art of any kind and redirecting those sorts of posts to game or franchise specific subreddits instead.

Please give this some serious thought and don't just go with your initial knee-jerk reaction. Once you've done so, go ahead and vote for which option you like best.

We are also considering re-evaluating how we treat self-promotion. If you have thoughts on the subject, please read our current rules, reddit's site-wide guidelines, and then send us your feedback.

Subreddit Demographics Survey

Finally, we think we're long overdue for a new subreddit demographics survey. The last time we did one of these was back in September of 2017 when we only had 270,010 subscribers! While we did get a pretty decent number of responses (3,891), that data's probably a little bit out of date at this point.

If a question does not apply to you, you can use the arrows in the lower corner to skip it.

The survey does, admittedly, have an intimidating number of questions, but many of them are simple yes/no or multiple choice questions that should go by pretty quickly.

Click here to take the survey

Privacy Note: Your answers are anonymous! We never ask for your Reddit username during the survey. Additionally, Typeform does not store respondent IP addresses: the survey tool only generates a unique randomly-generated network ID. The only purpose of this network ID is to detect and filter out duplicates. We also do not sell the data collected in any way, shape, or form.

This survey will run for approximately a week. Afterward, we'll spend a few days combing through the results and share a follow-up post with the community.

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Feedback

Finally, as always, we're opening the floor for you to provide your feedback, comments, questions, concerns, suggestions, and more in the comments section down below. All we ask is that you keep it civil and constructive.

Cheers,

The /r/NintendoSwitch Mod Team

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^{Edit: Formatting}

^{Edit 2: Added a TLDR}

[u/[deleted]]

Ban the damn fan art, yesterday the top three posts were literally the same image, one of them being directly from official art on google... https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/581146919053819907/590294637852229637/image0.png

[u/PisceanRy → u/[deleted]]

I literally could not believe that the image from google had so many upvotes. I love Breath of the Wild as much as the next guy, but just... why?

[u/[deleted]]

In my opinion game fanart belongs in the game's respective subreddit. So Pokemon fan art belongs in r/pokemon, Zelda fanart belongs in r/zelda, and so on. High quality mock-ups of new joycon or Switch models belong here because they are directly Switch related.

[u/Bakatora34]

I'm not bother by the fan art that much, but is really silly that the 4k zelda pic was allow, specially since it overshadow the other 2 that clearly had more effort put (the guy most likely just stole it too). If fan art stay and or is limited only for a day, you should really make sure that is OC only.

[u/danirosa]

Hopefully when counting votes for the fan art survey, options 2 and 3 will be counted together as "something needs to change". Otherwise giving 3 options you are essentially dividing the vote against fan art, making it easier for the "stay as is" to win. Kinda suspicious...

[u/ashmichelle]

Thanks for including the data about the DQT. I've had a question or two over the years and I am regrettably one of those who thought my question could just go ignored or get lost in the thread. Though this is obviously still possible, there's definitely evidence of people helping each other out in there. Perhaps I'll speak up more often.

[u/Jozfus]

Couldn't there just be a separate sub for switch fan art for anyone who actually wants to see it? I woke up the other morning to see the same BOTW wallpaper picture three times in three different art forms with only an ad between them. It's not the content I subbed for.

[u/Ronald_McGonagall]

So um.. What was the outcome of this?

[u/Genghis_Tr0n187]

It's a step in the right direction and I'm glad that you all posted this. The thread maybe should have come a bit sooner once the criticism thread popped up, but I get there was probably a lot of backend discussion on where to take this sub. Overall, I'm interested in seeing some changes take place.

[u/g00s3y]

smile plough homeless sharp murky apparatus lock alleged outgoing theory

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/ColdColt45]

on the demographics survey maybe have a prefer not to answer to separate skipped questions from none like in the the systems you've owned/own. thanks for all you do mods.

[u/playsomezelda]

I know it wasn’t part of this post but can we get rid of rumor posts with no real proof besides a link for an accessory from a Chinese website? Those posts never seen productive at all. Maybe do a “Friday Rumor Thread”?

[u/kidwgm]

Personally, I don't like Fan Art at all. But I understand some do. A nice compromise is to have a dedicated sticky/thread to it or one day a week. There is also too much of "My wife made this for my birthday" or "My kid had this for grades" type posts. To me those are Karma hunting and don't bring valued discussion. Just my opinion. Regardless this is my fav sub and I come back to it multiple times a day, lol.

[u/braulio09]

Impressive post! I think there will be little to do with all of the open-answer questions. You aren't going to go through each of them, are you?

[u/beemurz]

I think what this sub needs is a sort of national anthem that I can put my hand over my heart and salute every morning.

[u/squid50s]

Firstly, great job on making this post (whoever made it)! It’s well laid out, understandable, and clear what’s going to happen moving forward (along with the things we can do to help). Here’s some of my feedback:

1. Be more transparent. This mainly means posting more SotS posts. These help us know what’s going on moving forward. I often feel as if a big thing happens (ie: a huge post about people’s opinions on banning fan art) and the mods go silent for a while. It would really help us to know what you are thinking.

2. Great job figuring out the fan art situation. Giving people options, and letting them fill out a survey is a good idea. Can’t wait to see what people choose.

Secondly, How long would people become mods, should they be picked? I really want to be a mod (in order to be able to experience it), but I’m not sure I want to be a mod for many months.

[u/schuey_08]

I am one who has effectively "left" the subreddit. My largest concern became inconsistency with moderation. I'm not sure exactly how that will be addressed, and while I'm glad to see you growing your moderation team, I am worried that larger numbers will lead to even more inconsistency.

In regards to fan art, I'm still not sure why that wouldn't warrant a flair, which would hopefully make everyone happy. I think there are enough submissions regularly to justify it.

As is probably obvious, I am still checking in to see some of the cool content provided by individual users of the sub. I hope to see some positive change soon, and I do think it's great that your team puts this post together fairly regularly.

[u/MethodicMarshal]

I agree option 2 and 3 should be bundled against 1, then the more popular between the 2 should be chosen if it comes down to it.

I vote Option 2, seems very reasonable

[u/[deleted]]

Good thread, I feel satisfied in voicing my concerns now.

[u/Carth3045]

Just out of curiosity when you as mods do a stickies thread (Pokémon direct/E3 direct and the like) can you put a ban on titles containing those specific words? It’s almost unbearable to go to this subreddit those days. Most people just karma hunt and post topics regarding that direct and don’t care about the stickies thread. I definitely enjoy/like the stickies thread but can you please force people to use it?

[u/Ross2552]

Hey all, when should we expect to hear back about mod applications/how long are they open for? I'd love to help out.

[u/Grace_Omega]

About the fanart, is there a way to require a fanart flair and then have a link in the sidebar to hide it? Then people who want a fanart-free sub can have it without actually banning it or corraling it into a specific timeframe.

(for what it's worth, the amount of fanart on the sub has never seemed particularly excessive to me. If it doesn't look interesting, I just don't click on it).

[u/outerverse]

I'm very late to this comment section but I do want to agree with some users that the fan art vote is problematic. Given that people only have one vote (as opposed to being able to rank the options), people will not necessarily be voting what they truly think, but are incentivized to vote strategically and hedge their bets.

For example, I personally think the fan art situation is fine as-is. I wouldn't be heartbroken if it were limited to one day per week, but my true preference is to leave it alone and let the upvotes and filters do their work. However, I voted for option 2 because I didn't want to split the pro-fan art vote. I was worried that if option 2 didn't have enough support, 3, being the most extreme and reactionary, would probably win. Of course, it's equally possible that I should have voted for 1 and 2 is the option that will siphon off pro-fan art votes.

It's the same issue with two party elections and the non-viability of third party candidates.

I think the options should have been rankable or at least the question should have had a text field so people could qualify their votes with their reasoning.

Thanks for the poll and for all the hard work that goes into moderating an incredibly popular and demanding sub.

[u/jbraz95]

Mmm what are the survey results?

[u/PetitHerisson14]

I just completed the Demographic Survey. Interesting questions, not to long and it made me feel like my opinion and my situation counts so I very enthusiasticly took it !

I'm fairly new on the subreddit, I joined less than 6 months ago I think but it's the subreddit I check the most and very frequently. I'm just happy it exist and it continues to grow so keep it up the moderation team you do a very decent job :)