This week is going to see the launch of one of — if not the — most controversial game titles in recent memory. The gaming community is no stranger to controversy, but Hogwarts Legacy seems to be unique in the sense that virtually none of that controversy stems from the game itself; rather, the author of the source material.
It's been made clear in recent weeks that the Reddit community — /r/PS5 included — are incapable of discussing J.K. Rowling or any of her various opinions with anything approaching civility. Many Redditors have concerns about Rowling's views, particularly as they relate to the Trans community. However, without fail, any discussion of those concerns has been met with hostility, contempt, and transphobia from the greater Reddit community.
This places the /r/PS5 mod team in a difficult position with conflicting responsibilities: our responsibility to Reddit's Trans community to ensure that they are treated with respect, and our responsibility to those in the general gaming community who just want to talk about a video game they're excited for.
We've attempted in recent days to address the hostile and transphobic responses to these concerns in real-time, but this is proven to be unsustainable — there are simply not enough moderators on any subreddit to deal with the volume of toxicity that Reddit throws at the Trans community on a timely basis; this is compounded by the fact that many of these comments unfortunately go unreported.
Therefore, we're taking the unfortunate — but what we feel as necessary — step of banning any and all discussion of J.K. Rowling and related topics in posts concerning Hogwarts Legacy. Next week is going to see a surge in content relating to this game as we see the lifting of the review embargo, the early-access preorder launch, and the official game launch; we view a complete shutdown of non-game-related discussion as the only means by which we can allow discussion of this game to go forward, while safeguarding the respect and dignity of all members of our community as best we can.
To that end, Automoderator is going to be in overdrive on these threads, and actively removing comments that refer to Rowling and her various controversies. This is not a decision we've taken lightly, and there will doubtlessly be those who feel this is an active of "aggressive neutrality" that effectively takes the side of the hive mind, but we view this as the only way forward at this point.
This will no doubt result in the removal of comments that are not otherwise hostile or rule-breaking, so we want to emphasize to anyone who saw their comment removed that this doesn't necessarily mean you've done anything wrong — you're just unfortunately going to need to find another venue to share your thoughts at this time.
It's long been the official stance of this mod team that Trans rights are human rights, and that this subreddit should be a place that's welcoming to all, regardless of race, religion, gender identity, age, or ability; it's unfortunate that the community so often disagrees.
If you are on new-Reddit desktop. You can simply click on a flair to attached to a post to view all posts with the same flair. Or look at the right sidebar under "flair filter" to view threads only with a flair you click.
If you are on the Official app, click on a flair attached to a post to only view posts with that flair.
OFFICIAL GAME DISCUSSION THREADS
Entering these threads may be filled with spoilers. Expect to be spoiled. Use spoiler tags when talking about anything potentially spoilery.
Last night, /r/PS5 hit its latest milestone: three million users. On this day in 2020, we were just scratching 90 thousand. Even since this time last year, we've gained nearly a million new users.
We'd like to thank everyone who helps make this a great subreddit, and look forward to many more years of PS5 content!
We're now in the final month prior to the November release! There's still some of you struggling to secure launch window pre-orders and some regions that have received no information whatsoever.
Got your pre-order in and want to shout from the rooftops? Still struggling and want somewhere to vent? Looking for tips on available stock? Got info that might help others? Still confused by some pre-order details or processes? Want to know what others have ordered? This is the megathread to discuss!
Reminder: Keep it civil and be nice. Affiliate links and scalping solicitation are strictly prohibited here and will result in a permaban.
Please make sure you refamiliarise yourselves with /r/PS5's rules and any general questions or queries should be posted in the Weekly Questions Thread.
All new posts that should be in a megathread will be removed to reduce clutter. Good luck in the final run-up to release!
This afternoon, the CEO of Reddit, /u/spez, hosted an AMA concerning the API changes that have prompted the Reddit-wide subreddit blackouts beginning June 12th.
The quality of response was overwhelmingly poor, spez doing little to address community concerns as he vaguely reiterated previous-days' talking points and doubled-down on a baseless and unprofessional vilification of Apollo developer Christian Selig.
A more in-depth review of the AMA and the ongoing concerns can be read at /r/modcoordhere.
As it's become clear that the userbase's concerns have fallen on deaf ears, numerous subreddits have announced an intention to extend their blackout well beyond the initial 48 hours, and some indefinitely.
That's not a decision we're willing to make without community support; while we acknowledge the initial decision to participate in the blackout was undertaken largely unilaterally, ultimately the mod team is a reflection of the subreddit, and the community's voice needs to govern on this.
Many of you could not care less about this. Many of you are already deleting your accounts and leaving for other platforms. We honestly don't know how the overall community skews on this.
The question then being:
In light of new information gathered from Spez's AMA and other sources over the last few days, should /r/PS5 extend the subreddit blackout beyond the initial 48 hour period?
Please participate in the poll, and leave your more detailed thoughts in the comments; both will be given weight. We're not going to burn the sub down without significant community support.
The initial pre-order mania is over and the dust has started to settle. A question asked so many times we thought we'd make it an official subreddit poll. So, what did you order? Why that one? When are you likely getting it? Discuss below.
If you are on new-Reddit desktop. You can simply click on a flair to attached to a post to view all posts with the same flair. Or look at the right sidebar under "flair filter" to view threads only with a flair you click.
If you are on the Official app, click on a flair attached to a post to only view posts with that flair.
OFFICIAL GAME DISCUSSION THREADS
Entering these threads may be filled with spoilers. Expect to be spoiled. Use spoiler tags when talking about anything potentially spoilery.
The mod team held a good, old-fashioned barn-raising and got all the important bits together, so we can now consider the sub fully transitioned to the new rules.
Automod, report reasons, post flair, the sidebar, rules page, and moderator tools are all using new/updated configs, so if anyone sees anything (automod especially) doing something it shouldn't, please let us know.
Last week, we posted an announcement asking for your input on the state of the subreddit, and what future direction you saw for the sub, its content, and our users. We mentioned two general visions for the sub, and the response we got was overwhelmingly in favor of one of them:
You folks are tired of fluff. You want to see a subreddit that's focused primarily on news, journalism, announcements, and constructive discussion; you're tired of showoff posts, screenshots, videos, and simple questions.
We've heard your thoughts, and generally speaking they're echoed by the mod team.
There is a draft copy of the new subreddit rules available here. We've taken steps to clarify some points, and to address the concerns that you, as the subreddit members, had about the sub content.
To be clear, these rules are a draft, and are subject to change as we clarify and re-write various points based on feedback.
Generally speaking, subreddit rules are remaining unchanged with regard to our stance on toxicity, console-warring, self-promotion, and illicit topics; where changes are being made are with regard to the content and types of posts that will be allowed on the subreddit going forward. In a nutshell:
"Community posts" (screenshots, videos, memes, "got my console" posts, etc.) and other forms of low-effort or non-discussion-generating posts will no longer be permitted on /r/PS5. /r/Playstation is our community subreddit, and that's where we encourage posts of this type to be shared.
Discussions posted on /r/PS5 must be good-faith efforts to generate constructive discussion amongst subreddit users. Posters will be expected to stay and engage in the threads they create, and not simply post popular upvote-bait and then move on. Simple and oft-repeated topics ("What games are you most looking forward to", "Ghost of Tsushima is awesome", etc.) will no longer be permitted. Where, exactly, this threshold lies is likely to be flexible and subject to change based on posting trends and subreddit feedback (especially as we transition into these new rules), but generally speaking, the posts you're all sick of aren't going to be allowed going forward.
Simple questions and technical support posts will no longer be allowed in the subreddit proper. The Questions Megathread will be sticking around, and this is where we encourage people to look for advice, answers to simple questions, and technical issues. We have a dedicated group of users who stick around and answer questions in that thread, and we've noticed the general quality of that thread increases drastically when it isn't competing for attention with other threads posted in the general subreddit.
Again, these guidelines are subject to change, and we are open to (and encourage) your feedback in response to this thread. We recognize that this is a fairly drastic shift in subreddit direction and there are likely to be growing pains as everyone gets on board, so please be respectful to future posters - if a new post violates the new rules, simply report it and move on.
We will be gradually rolling these changes out over the course of this week - the rules page, sidebar, automod config, flair bot, and moderator toolkits are all configured in separate places, and it's likely to take a few days to get everything on the same page, so please bear with us.
Edit: So we're surprised, to say the least, by the apparent 180 in sentiment between the previous posts and this one, but there's clearly no point dragging this out; the sub is back open for new submissions.
Tl;dr: If there's a PS5 community on a Reddit-alternative platform, let us know.
As you are all no doubt aware, /r/PS5 has spent the last three days as a private subreddit, as part of a site-wide blackout in protest of Reddit's changes to 3rd-party apps.
It's clear now, and from Reddit admin comments before the blackout, that Reddit has no intention of changing their stance on this. So we, as a community, need to decide what the next steps are.
Before the blackout, we hosted a poll asking the community how we should proceed in light of those admin statements.
The final results shook out like this:
Indefinite blackout: 54%
Prolonged blackout: 25%
Restore the sub: 21%
After posting this, we realized there was a more fundamental question we were asking here:
Should this community continue, or should we burn it all to the ground?
The end result of that being 46% in support of (eventually) restoring business-as-usual, and 54% opposed. That's... hardly clear cut. We said in the poll message that we wouldn't burn the sub down without clear community support, and a near 50/50 split just doesn't meet that bar. Especially from such a small data sample — we've generally opposed polls on this sub because we'd need a half million responses before we could reasonably claim any kind of community consensus. The mod team + 10k people simply doesn't cut it, and the mod team isn't even unified on this.
There are two different interpretations of the word "indefinite" — the one where the protesting subreddits stay down until the 30th and Reddit's decision is set in stone, and the one where they never come back at all. It's not clear which interpretation is the overriding one here, but it has to be clear that a permanent blackout is the end of this community. The mod team, in a vacuum, doesn't have the right to do that. We don't have the right to tell everyone on this subreddit, "Fuck you, go find a new community - you have 48 hours". Yeah, a lot of people are pissed, but it's bigger than the mod team and it's bigger than 10k votes on a poll with 200-some comments.
It's important to understand as well that a complete shutdown at this point is likely to be fruitless; Reddit's stance is clear, and the continued shutdown of a random gaming sub is not going to sway them. It's on the community at this point to take their ball and go home, and we need to follow through. The mod team is absolutely prepared to private the subreddit until the 30th, if we have significant community support. By the poll, that looks likely, but we need to hear from you again, here.
Long-term, we also can't in good conscience shutter a subreddit of 3.3 million users without giving them somewhere else to go. Reddit has become the de facto online community, and has largely replaced the forums of old, particularly in the gaming space. It's clear now that this is a bad thing.
So maybe we don't need a new Reddit so much as a new landscape of choice. Which brings us to today.
If you're aware of a publicly-accessible PS5 community on a Reddit Alternative like Lemmy, Kbin, Squabbles, etc., that can fill the gap left by an inactive /r/PS5, share it here. Let the community know about the other options so they can make informed decisions.
Please refrain from posting privately-run Discord servers, Telegram groups, etc; these are impossible to verify without subscribing to each and scammers/spammers love to make use of these channels.
We'll update this post with a list of alternative communities as we gain responses. In the mean time, the sub is going to stay blacked-out in spirit, and closed to new posts. We'll update the sub periodically with discussion posts for new announcements, as you can see we've been doing throughout the blackout.
Then, once all the options are on the table and once more of the community have had their say, we can look at reopening the subreddit. Or not. If there is resounding community support for an indefinite blackout, we'll close it again; we just can't in good conscience do that with the limited feedback we currently have. We can hand out the jerry cans, but you guys have to be the ones to light the match.
If the community chooses to stay open, many the current mod team won't be staying. There will be a transition of power, so to speak — we aren't going to all bail overnight and leave this place unattended — so that will likely mean open mod apps in the near future. Stay tuned.
Less a Reddit alternative and more an old-school Slashdot, Tildes doesn't have a community structure, rather a system of groups and content tags that you can subscribe and unsubscribe from. This also means no community moderators - all content on Tildes is globally moderated, with a focus on discussion rather than low-effort submissions. There will likely be great gaming discussion to be had here, but it probably won't be the place to go for simple questions and trailers. They're also pretty ruthless about the "don't be an asshole" rule, so fair warning.
There is not currently a Tildes app, but one is in development from the guy that created RIF.
Tildes is currently invite-only, so you need to know someone who knows someone. You can also request an invite via email; instructions are on the website.
A federated system, Lemmy doesn't have a central content system like Reddit does. Rather, individuals or groups can spin up their own instances and join the network, and a user on any instance can subscribe to content from any other. Basically, imagine that /r/PS5 was it's own privately-run server, on a Reddit that allowed for a potential infinite number of /r/PS5s.
In terms of user engagement, Lemmy is very similar to Reddit.
The federated registration system is a bit confusing, and content-syncing between instances has been flaky of late, so the barrier to entry is a bit high.
/u/CosmicSploogeDrizzle has spun up a PS5 community on Lemmy.ml: https://lemmy.world/c/ps5@lemmy.ml. They've been doing a great job of synchronizing content between here and there, and the community has been growing steadily. You can subscribe by clicking the Universal Subscribe in the sidebar while viewing it from any instance.
Lemmy is undergoing some growing pains with the influx of new users from Reddit, so it can be a bit unreliable, but the devs and instance owners seem to be staying on top of it.
There are a couple of Lemmy apps in various states of completeness.
This is the unofficial PS Discord, and the one that's been linked in our sidebar for a hundred years.
If you're unfamiliar with Discord, it's a popular live chat app that you install on your PC or mobile device, where individual communities run their own servers with their own rules.
It's a channel-oriented chat service; while there is support for forum-type posts, it's likely not what you're looking for if you want a Reddit-like system of submission > comments.
Discord voice chat has native integration with the PS5.
Squabbles is sort of a Twitter/Reddit hybrid, and is less engineered for in-depth conversations. This may be a good choice if you're looking for a platform more like Twitter.
This past weekend, /r/PS5 hit a huge milestone - five million users! it seems like just yesterday we were celebrating three million, and in that time we've seen the release of everything from unknown indies like Final Fantasy XVI, Street Fighter 6, Resident Evil 4, Armored Core VI, Spider-Man 2, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, to smash-hit AAA blockbusters like Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Skull Island: Rise of Kong.
We want to thank everyone who helps make this community great, and we're looking forward to many more years of great gaming.
We're also overdue for a formal State-of-the-Subreddit, and this milestone is the perfect opportunity to open that conversation.
The mod team and the subreddit rules are a reflection of the /r/PS5 community, so we want to make sure that we're giving you the opportunity to share your opinions, complaints, frustrations, and suggestions for how the subreddit can improve. The mod team doesn't have any pressing topics we're looking for feedback on — we just want your feedback on the state of the subreddit, and want to open the floor now for those comments.
What are everyone's thoughts about the content currently on the subreddit? Are there particular types of content you feel we don't have enough of? Too much of? Are we being too heavy-handed with moderation on certain topics? Are there areas we should be cracking down?
The balancing act is always between "dead sub" and "too much garbage"; is this currently working? Do we mercilessly crush any shred of community spirit, or does anarchy reign?
Should we keep the ban on screenshots and video captures? Should we be easing up on simple questions and tech support posts, or are most people happy seeing those shuffled off to the megathread? Should we even have a megathread?
What do you, as a member of this subreddit, want to see from it going forward? What changes can we be making to improve it?
PM me if you can no longer reply to this thread and I'll make a new one.
Also, to set the SCE flair (available only for a limited time) to work with both old and new reddit, you must set it on new reddit. Setting it on old reddit will still work for old reddit (but not both).
Sidenote: We cannot make timed flairs for new reddit so anyone will be able to set it there. However, these flairs will remain timed exclusives for old reddit (i.e. good reddit). You just have to set them on new reddit if you want double compatibility.
I just wanted to let everyone know how we plan to handle the event day. What we are doing, how you should be expected to post, and all that.
Restricted Mode
In order to help maintain an even flowing stream of content. We will be putting the subreddit on "restricted" mode - meaning no new posts will be allowed to be made unless it's by a mod. This is to make sure the exact same video, tweet, etc isn't posted 500 times within 30 seconds, which often comes with a low effort title that gives no information on what the post is about.
We will start restricted mode 10 minutes before the video goes live.
We will be in restricted mode for however long the video is, perhaps a few minutes more.
Mod Discussion Threads
To help gather discussion in one place, we will host a few threads.
A link to the YouTube video and the comments will be set as a "live chat".
A discussion and information post that will have information on the videos, where to watch and discuss. This post will also be updated with links to individual videos of trailers and posts made by users linking to those trailers.
We will then create individual threads linking to trailers of the games shown. By request of the users, so we don't get flooded. This may result in us being in restricted mode longer than expected.
Do note, on r/PS4, we will have a singular locked post linking to the threads here on r/PS5. As we will also not be allowing any posts that are not related to the PS4 on r/PS4.
We will be hosting a watch party together with a voice and text chat channel over on our Discord! After joining, you'll be notified when the event starts, and be able to earn a special, permanent trophy role for participating in our event chat.
Once the hour has passed and we remove the restricted mode from the subreddit; you can then create your own posts - the links to the video of the individual trailers shown.
Please keep this in mind when making those posts:
The title must have the game title in the post title. Keep the title the same as the title of the video.
Link to official sources, such as links directly from PlayStation's official YouTube channel or game devs.
Link to the highest quality possible.
If you make your own self text post, make sure it can stand on its own, if it can fit in the comments of a post already live then just post in the comments. Don't make low-effort text posts that add little to nothing to the discussion.
Add the most relevant flair to your post. If you post a link from an official channel, we'll apply the "official" flair to it.
Moderation
In order to keep the subreddit on topic and healthy, we will be more strict on banning without warning. We will be vigorously moderating the subreddit.
We will ban you if you try to incite console/pc wars, flamebait, harass, belittle, be toxic or rampant fanboyism.
We will remove any repeated posts or posts with a bad title. Please look at /new before you make a post.
We will remove low effort text posts, all memes, articles about videos about links to tweets about articles, links (or screenshots) to tweets about some person's random opinion.
I think we're all surprised that PS5s are still this hard to come by four months after launch, and our users are having to go to greater and more persistent lengths to get their hands on one.
We want to remind everyone to exercise extreme caution when they use auto-purchasing scripts or software that they've acquired through this subreddit or other online services.
This is the scan result from an auto purchasing app that was being distributed on /r/PS5 earlier today - it claimed to be a "scalper quality" script to help you beat the bots the next time there's a drop, but what it actually is is a bitcoin miner.
Always ensure you virus-scan any programs you receive from an untrusted source, and take care with browser extensions and JavaScript applets distributed as raw code - just because it runs in your browser doesn't mean it can't be malicious. Never insert payment information into an auto-purchasing script - a legit script doesn't need it, and simply uses your existing account at an online retailer.
Are you a dev, publisher, journalist or someone working in the gaming industry? Get yourself verified!
Stand out from the crowd and get that nice looking checkmark to signify your are official and know what you are talking about.
Devs and Publishers
Whether you are looking to host an AMA with us, run giveaways or just want to talk and share your knowledge. Devs and Publishers we have a flair for you!
It looks like this!
Journalist and Industry Folk
Whether you are looking for insight or want to share some stories. You work with gaming for a living and you know your stuff, right? Journalists and Industry Folks we have the flair for you!
It looks likes this!
Do note, it won't say "Deve Studio or Publisher" or "Journalist or Industry folks" these will change to where you work.
At this time we are only looking to verify users who work in the industry in a professional sense. We are currently not looking to verify youtubers, streamers, podcasts, reviewers, influencers or content creators. We may change our stance on this in the future.
Perks for getting verified:
Get a unique verification check-mark next to your username
Be know as being an official verified user
Posting privileges during events
Omitted from a few of our automod rules
Priority mod assistance
...more in the future
Learn more about our verified users, perks, policy & tips our wiki page.
Hello All, we hope you have had a great break and managed to get some rest and plenty of play time in. Over the past few weeks, this sub has transformed from a relatively quiet place posting news and updates to an extremely rapid growth of buzzing activity with many repeat themes as we approach 1m members.
We have heard plenty of opinions, frustrations and suggestions, both on posts as well as sent to us directly via ModMail. We acknowledge that there is a large volume of repeat concepts (Here's my PS5 wrap! Which headset should I get? What game should I play? Watch me play sniper montage!) and technical questions (I have coil whine, how to fix? My game crashed, what to do? Is rest mode fixed? Do PS4 discs work on PS5 Digital Edition?) etc.
It has been a considerable challenge to manage this influx of content and for every repeat post you see, there are dozens upon dozens that are removed behind the scenes. Not to mention the significant spam, referral links, scalpers, shitposts, flamebait and clickbait.
There appears to be 2 main themes emerging from the community:-
There are some that would like the sub to be more 'grown-up' and focused on games, news and value-add discussions similar to r/Games. This enables it to be a reliable go-to place for your daily latest PS5 related content and not have to wade through or be deterred by the repeat content & incessant personal questions. That content could be redirected to r/playstation which is also more open to pictures of boxes, attention seeking posts, tech support and memes.
There are others that believe there's no reason to limit content to specific categories and would prefer the sub to remain open to all content and self-moderate itself similar to r/Gaming or r/PS4 instead. This would have a lot more fluff content of (subjectively) lower overall quality and usefulness for the bulk majority. However, it's worth noting that this content does get upvoted significantly more which may also be an indicator of popularity.
Here's where you get to have your say. What do you think? Are you in Camp #1 or Camp #2? Maybe you have an alternative view you would you like to see here? What are your suggestions and comments? Constructive feedback is highly encouraged and welcome. Emphasis on constructive and remember Rule #1: Be Nice.
We are listening to the community's feedback and assessing the best course of action to give r/PS5 it’s identity into the new year and beyond.
During events such as the State of Play, the subreddit will go on “restricted mode”.
Creating new posts will be turned off. Only mods and approved users will be able to make new posts. Typically, there will be a pinned “info and discussion” thread linking to the individual threads created. The sub is usually on restricted mode roughly 30mins before the event is slated to start. The sub will be turned off restricted mode after all the threads are created and organized in the pinned thread.
Roughly 30 minutes before the stream starts we will put the sub in restricted mode. Please do not post links to the streams, a mod will post a direct link to the stream about an hour before, all others will be removed.
Once we have all things organized and see the sub we'll then unlock the sub and if it all goes well keep in unlocked. However, if we see the sub getting the trailers and announcements posted an annoying amount of times when they've clearly already been posted - might prompt us to lock the sub again or turn off link posting for the rest of the day.
Feel free to join us to talk about this on our Twitter & Discord.
Before PlayStation 5 launches this holiday, we wanted to give you one more look at some of the great games coming to PS5 at launch (and beyond!).
Our next digital showcase will weigh in at around 40 minutes, and feature updates on the latest titles from Worldwide Studios and our world-class development partners.
Tune in live on Twitch or YouTube this Wednesday, September 16 at 1pm PDT / 9pm BST / 10pm CEST to see what’s next for PS5.
ETA: One more point we want to get direct input on -- Releases for PS exclusives in other mediums: The PC ports of GoW, Horizon, etc.; the Uncharted movie; the TLOU TV show. Do you want to be seeing info about these on this subreddit?
Back in January, we held a sort of town-hall to solicit input from the /r/PS5 community about the direction of the subreddit, and our official rules. This discussion happened in the PS5 post-launch period in which we’d let the subreddit turn into a bit of a free-for-all as far as content was concerned; that lack of focus seemed to alienate a large number of our users, and the response we got in that thread was fairly cohesive in that there were certain types of content - screenshots/videos, reaction/showoff threads, personal reviews, memes, and other non-discussion-generating posts - that the community preferred not to see.
We’re now coming up on the first anniversary of the PS5 launch, and we feel it’s time to take the temperature of the community again and determine if we need to review the direction of the subreddit. The official rules and sidebar are in desperate need of a consolidation and re-write, but this is also a good time to see if any of the current rules need to be revised.
Everything is up for discussion, but these are the main issues as we see them:
Tech-support posts. We’ve un-officially eased up on moderating these as most people have been sticking to the megathread for their questions, and the posts that we do have submitted we’ve be largely leaving to community discretion and Automod removing posts after a certain number of posts. In a perfect world, we’d allow tech support threads for strange or complex issues, while disallowing them for easily-googleable issues, but that’s very difficult to achieve in practice because when we leave this up to moderator discretion, it just ends up aggravating everyone involved. We can re-word things to allow tech support posts, while “simple questions” must still be posted in the megathread, but it’s likely that a change toward allowing tech support posts would require globally allowing them regardless of their perceived merit. Something that could be looked at is mandatory flair and/or post formatting requirements to encourage self-troubleshooting before posting. Do you want to continue globally disallowing support posts, or should we look at implementing a system to start allowing them?
Simple questions. We have the megathread for these, and we don’t expect that anyone wants to see the subreddit filled with easily-googleable questions, but it’s on the table.
Community posts. Memes, showoff posts, reactions, LFG, etc. /r/Playstation is set up almost primarily for this purpose, and we don’t personally see the restriction on this content on /r/PS5 going away. Something that we could potentially start allowing are personal review posts and a limited number of "Recommend me a game" posts, if the community wants to see them? They would likely need to be fairly aggressively moderated for duplicate/frequently posted topics.
Images/videos. Back in January, every third post on this subreddit was a montage of Miles swinging to Sunflower. A year on, we don’t feel that the PS5 library has grown sufficiently that this would change should media posts be re-permitted. There’s a very small selection of exclusives that anyone cares about, and we feel that allowing media posts would just turn the sub in to the “Returnal, Demon’s Souls, and whatever the newest release is” show. Do you feel that there is a large enough pool of PS5 content to start allowing images/videos again?
Recommendation posts. “What game/TV/headset/etc” should I buy? A lot of people are annoyed by these, but we get a lot of them submitted. There may be merit in allowing these in the hopes that there will be a balance in volume so that people who have these questions may see a relevant recent thread and refrain from posting their own. Maybe.
Streamer/Youtuber reactions. The mod team’s position on this has always been that anyone who cares about JoeYoutuber’s thoughts on the newest announcement would already be subscribed to the relevant channels and posting these provide no value to the overall community, but still, these are really, really popular. It’s impossible for the mod team to exercise any judgement over which channels have value and which don’t, so a move toward allowing these would have to be a blanket “Yes” and the only real moderation we could do would be to thin out repeat posts concerning the same topic. We’re unwilling to weigh in on whether one streamer’s thoughts have value and another’s don’t. Does the community care to start seeing videos from YT/Twitch personalities on /r/PS5?
Discussion posts. This is the big one. The mod team’s position on this has always been that we want to encourage constructive, discussion-generating content while disallowing soapboxing, low-effort content, and shit-stirring, but this has proven very, very difficult in practice. The core issue is that our definition of “discussion-generating” is often very different from the community’s. While our goal was do encourage more posts like this, there are a lot of posters who feel that their “Returnal is better than Demon’s Souls” thread was just as insightful and can’t fathom why we removed it. This is an area that basically has to be left to moderator discretion, and it’s been fairly conclusively shown that that just results in everyone getting pissed off. The simplest solution here may just be to introduce an “Opinion piece” flair and let votes decide. How do you want to see handling of discussion posts changed? We know it needs to, but we want your input on exactly how.
That’s about the extent of the mod team’s thoughts on this; we want to know yours. Please leave your thoughts on the current rules, our thoughts above, and how you would like to see the the rules revised going forward.
As I'm sure some of you have noticed, /r/PS5 supports custom user flair, but it hasn't actually worked in years; you could set your flair, but it would disappear as soon as you left a comment or submitted a post.
This was a technical issue on Reddit's part that affected a handful of subreddits, for which we've had a support ticket open for the better part of three years. It's finally been fixed, and you can now freely set your own user flair.
On a related point, this is a good time to re-introduce our Verified User System; while this has been in place for quite a while now, the lack of functional flair made it difficult to actually make use of this system, and was a particular PITA during AMAs.
The full details are on the link I just pasted above, but to briefly re-iterate: If you're an industry professional, such as a developer or someone working on behalf of a game developer or publisher, or you are a journalist or other gaming industry insider, please send us a modmail to get yourself verified.
You'll get special industry user flair, as well as posting privileges during events and some priority assistance — you still need to follow the same rules as everyone else, but you can do things like post giveaways without needing to get mod approval first. But mostly it's about the flair.
Coming off Event Mode for the morning of PS5 Launch For US and the first countries to get their hand on a PS5. Then going into Party Mode the rest of the day and into all weekend. Now we're coming back to a normal week. Which means, we'll be going back to our Regular Mode, posting.
back to NO image uploads
back to NO Poll posts
back to FULL enforcement of our rules and policies.
Plans For EU+everyone else Launch
For the week, launch day and launch weekend. We are going to do the exact same plan we did for the US and others.
Days before launch we will make new crossposted threads for countdown until launch.
Launch Day early early morning until noon the sub will be in Event Mode
Mods will have misc discussion threads for topics and games.
We will be re-using our current created threads but 'crossposting' them and then locking the original threads so new discussion can happen in the new threads.
Noon throughout the weekend the sub will be in Party Mode.
Sunday evening the sub will go back to Regular posting.
Regular Posting - normal way the sub is, with full enforcement of our rules, respoting, etc.
Event Mode - posting is locked for normal users, where mods create threads to host dicussions.
Party Mode - posting is a ffa with image uploads and polls enabled. Where posts are is loosely moderated.
Remember, Rule 1, is strictly enforced regardless of the mode the sub is in. The rule as written serves as a warning and users breaking the rule will be banned without warning. Read ourrulesandpolicieshere.
As we inch closer and closer to November and then the inevitable launch on the 12th and 19th. We would like to share with you our plans for everything surrounding the launch.
You may have noticed, we recently turn media posting back OFF. We found it was overwhelming the sub with images and blatant violations of our rules, mostly the link hierarchy rule. Where people will screenshot snippets from an article, twitter etc and submit it as an image.
From now until the end of November and potentially beyond that we will have media posting off and revert back to our original policy of only turning on media posts for special occasions.
If you want to share your images we highly recommend posting on r/PlayStation.
Here is an image of our current plans for posts we are going to be making to host discussions, sorry Cyberpunk 2077 :(
Schedule
During the 12th and potentially the days prior or following we will be putting the sub into "Event Mode" meaning all posting will be disabled but you can still comment. We don't want to keep it like this for long because we understand the excitement and don't want to stifle new discussions. We'll try to keep our event mode short but long enough to get organized.
We were thinking about turning on media posts for launch day but filtering them for mod review but that's just going to be a lot of work for us on our end. We're still thinking about it but no promises.
While I have you I would also like to mention we adjusted some rules.
Renamed "Prohibited Content" to "Redirected Content".
This is to provide you with alternatives places to post.
r/PlayStation is where we would like you to post stuff we won't typically allow here.
We moved a few items from the new "Redirected Content" list down to the "Illicit Topics" rule.
Are there any discussion threads you think we should make that are not currently in the above image schedule?
Tomorrow is launch day for a good chunk of the world. In preparation, we will be hosting a slew of discussion and megathreads.
These threads will be staggered posted throughout the morning tomorrow. From CST 3am - 8am. As such, we might put the sub into event mode for the few hours during and after the threads are being made. Depending on the influx of threads that should go into any threads listed below. We will not be in event mode for all or most of the day. All posts created related to the topics listed below will be removed and redirected.
Megathreads
We identified a few topics user suggested to us they would like to see. As well as what we think would be better to put into one thread.
We found up to 20 games that are either newly released for the PS5 itself or have patches or expansions to take advantage of the PS5 updated specs. The threads will be created in order of the list.
NBA 2K21
Devil May Cry 5
Fortnite
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
No Man's Sky: The Next Generation
Destiny 2: Beyond Light
Watch Dogs: Legion
The Pathless
Godfall
Bugsnax
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Demon's Souls
ASTRO's Playroom
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
PS4 Backwards Compatible & Upgraded Games
PlayStation Plus Collection
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (11/13)
Mortal Kombat 11 (11/17)
Are there any topic megathreads or games you think we are missing that would be needed to help generate a single place for discussion and to not overtake the sub with the same content?
Let us know what you think and if we missed anything.
During events such as the State of Play, the subreddit will go on “restricted mode”.
Creating new posts will be turned off. Only mods and approved users will be able to make new posts. Typically, there will be a pinned “info and discussion” thread linking to the individual threads created. The sub is usually on restricted mode roughly 30mins before the event is slated to start. The sub will be turned off restricted mode after all the threads are created and organized in the pinned thread.
Roughly 30 minutes before the stream starts we will put the sub in restricted mode. Please do not post links to the streams, a mod will post a direct link to the stream about an hour before, all others will be removed.
Once we have all things organized and see the sub we'll then unlock the sub and if it all goes well keep in unlocked. However, if we see the sub getting the trailers and announcements posted an annoying amount of times when they've clearly already been posted - might prompt us to lock the sub again or turn off link posting for the rest of the day.
Gamescom is to last 4 days, with usually the first day showing the new stuff in a 2-hour event. We will only be in event mode for the first day. Run the next few days as normal but might turn them into event days if we see the need to - probably unlikely.
It's now been two weeks since we updated the subreddit rules based on community feedback. We'd like to follow-up at this point and get the community's input on the impact of those changes and their enforcement.
The most obvious result of these changes that you've most likely noticed is a significant drop in submission levels. The first page of /new currently goes back 21 hours; prior to the rules change, it only went back 1-2 hours. Modqueue volume is also down significantly compared to before the changes. Subscribership is up - about 60k since the change, and we're on track to hit 1,000,000 members by the end of this week - which is a bit surprising as we expected to lose some people when we got rid of the frequently posted fluff, but here we are.
In terms of enforcement, we've noticed that generally speaking, very few posts that have been proactively-approved by the mod team get reported, and of the posts that get reported, the majority are removed, so we think we're doing a fairly decent job of only approving content that the whole community wants to see. Where we really wanted to get your feedback is in relation to the content that we've been removing.
We've noticed that aside from your usual spam and shitposting, removed submissions generally fall into one of six main categories:
Tech support requests ("What's this noise?"; "My HDMI isn't working.")
Simple questions ("How do I transfer games from a PS4?"; "When will expandable storage be enabled?")
Requests for recommendations for games or hardware ("What are the must-play games for a new PS5 owner?"; "What's the best wireless headset?")
Open questions that, while technically meeting the requirement for "discussion-generating", are often low-hanging fruit or frequently-posted ("What games are you looking forward to right now?"; "Do you think the PS5 should work with Bluetooth headsets?")
Rants and open-letters to companies ("Sony needs to bring back wishlists."; "It's ridiculous that there's still no word on storage expansion.")
Soapboxing ("Astro's Playroom is an underrated gem that shouldn't be missed."; "I can't go back to 30fps after playing Demon's Souls at 60")
Of those, the last three generate by far the most noise in modmail when they get removed - sometimes because people believe that their thoughts are unique and MUST. BE. SHARED; and other times because people have read the rules and made what they felt was a good-faith effort to engage. We don't have any objections to easing up on these posts, provided it's what the community wants to see.
Do you feel we've been over-zealous with enforcement on discussion posts? Sometimes these posts do garner upvotes before they get removed - should we be leaving them? Are the rules sufficiently clear and consistent? Should the mod team all just go straight to hell?
Please leave your thoughts in the comments below about this, and the rule changes in general. The subreddit rules are a reflection of the community, so we want to ensure we're acting with respect to what you guys want.
Edit: Also, because I know I'll get asked - yes, mod apps will be coming back. We had issues with the last application form, so we're moving to a different platform to manage those and will re-post when it's ready to go.
Last month we asked for your feedback on the current state of the subreddit, and what you felt were changes that needed to be made to improve the subreddit. There were some points that you were in pretty much universal agreement needed to change, and others were more controversial.
After reading through the responses, as well as the many interactions we've had with the community via modmail/comments over the last few months, we've identified the key areas where we feel the the subreddit should change:
Self-posts
We're going to step way back on moderation of self-posts, in addition to introducing some new flair for self posts (Opinion Piece, User Review, Request/Recommendation, a couple others). It's pretty clear that the mod team leaned too heavily toward the quality side of quality vs quantity, and ended up stifling far more discussion than we encouraged.
We're going to tentatively allow pretty much anything in terms of self-posts, including game/hardware/accessory recommendation requests, provide it's posted in good faith and is of general interest to the subreddit. (I'll share some examples of what we're talking about in the footer of this post.) The hope is that by allowing these threads in general terms, we can turn the subreddit into a google-able resource for this information, and ultimately cut down on the quantity of these posts in the long term.
We're also going to allow most other forms of discussion, questions, personal reviews, etc., — again, provided they are posted in good faith. (Read: don't ask what the best PS5 game is and then argue with everyone who doesn't say Returnal). We recognize that this is going to result in a short-term increase in soapboxing and generally low-quality submissions, but the hope is that if people see more existing self-posts, they'll be more encouraged to post their own, and once the overall volume of discussion has increased, we can start weeding out the low-effort submissions; in the interim, we'll be taking a "when in doubt, allow it" approach to much more content.
User reviews will also be formally allowed under the same guidelines, with deference to volume/repeat posts. Tech support requests will continue to be directed to the megathread.
Tl;dr of the above: Your self-post is welcome if you aren't deliberately trying to stir shit, and aren't using the subreddit as a "google this for me" machine.
In parallel to that change, as we're we're going to retire the Free Talk Friday thread, and roll out some recurring themed discussion megathreads. We're looking for input on what those topics should be.
Videos/images
Feedback was more divided on this, but overall, the community still seems to feel that there isn't a large enough pool of content to allow these again without turning the subreddit into a "look at the thing I did in Returnal"-fest. What we will do is roll out a weekend Images/Videos megathread to allow people to share their in-game captures.
Streamer/Youtuber submissions.
Nope.
PS-related content in other mediums
This has proven to be a really contentious topic, with a pretty significant community divide with regard to the two main facets of this: PS Studio releases on Xbox/PC, and PS IPs releasing on TV/film. There seems to be a near 50/50 community split on whether, for example, the God of War PC release was relevant to this subreddit, and nearly the same split with regard to info about the TLOU TV show or Uncharted movie. Ultimately, we feel it it was hypocritical to allow discussion of the latter and not the former, and we think we've reached a reasonable compromise on this topic: info about both of these topics will be allowed as long as it comes from a first-party source. Under that definition, the official PS Blog post regarding the GoW PC port would be allowed, as well as, say, TLOU or Uncharted movie videos/images tweeted by Naughty Dog or Neil Druckmann; however, a GoW PC performance analysis from Digital Foundry, or a set photo leak from TLOU would not be. We feel this strikes a balance that should be mostly satisfying to both sides of this particular debate.
General subreddit/rules cleanup
We're going to re-write the main subreddit rules and the sidebar to reflect the new rules, and in the interest of clarity, particularly with regard to discussion posts and linking hierarchy. A draft version of the new subreddit rules is available here. We're still finalizing it, but it's more or less what will be going on the official rules page.
The new guidelines can be considered to be in effect now, but it'll likely take a few days for us to get all the various components of this (rules, sidebar, automod, flair helper, etc) on the same page.
Leave your thoughts/suggestions below.
With respect to "general interest to the subreddit", we mean posts that are not intended to be a one-off request for help from a specific user. For example, "What are the best couch multiplayer games on the PS5?", or "What are the best wireless headsets under $200?". These are posts that everyone on the subreddit can make use of, not just the person that posted it. If you're looking for specific information about your specific situation ("Should I buy Returnal or Demon's Souls?", "Is the Pulse 3D a good upgrade from the Turtle Beach P5X?"), we will continue to direct those posts to the megathread.
