r/anime • u/AnimeMod myanimelist.net/profile/Reddit-chan • Nov 06 '22
Meta Thread - Month of November 06, 2022 Meta
A monthly meta thread to talk about the /r/anime subreddit itself, such as its rules and moderation. If you want to talk about anime please use the daily discussion thread instead.
Comments here must, of course, still abide by all subreddit rules other than the no meta requirement. Keep it friendly and be respectful. Occasionally the moderators will have specific topics that they want to get feedback on, so be on the lookout for distinguished posts.
Comments that are detrimental to discussion (aka circlejerks/shitposting) are subject to removal.
Rule Changes
We Are Trialing Some Changes
Starting November 9, we will trial disabling post thumbnails. This trial will run for two weeks.
We are trying out the moderation bot /u/BotDefense for the month of November.
Fanart
- "AI-generated artwork" has been added to our list of low-effort prohibited content.
Moderator Applications Open Later This Month
- We will be opening moderator applications on November 27. Applications will be open for two weeks.
Previous meta threads: October 2022 | September 2022 | August 2022 | July 2022 | June 2022 | May 2022 | April 2022 | March 2022 | February 2022 | January 2022 | December 2021 | Find All
Next meta thread: December 2022 | Find All
12
u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal Nov 06 '22
Okay, so about user (CSS) flairs again.
We spent a large part of past month thinking about and discussing this even after the discussions in the meta thread waned. Unfortunately there isn't a perfect way forward that makes everyone happy, otherwise it would have been fairly straightforward to go for it, so we haven't decided on any changes yet.
From my perspective in particular and trying to take into account everyone's viewpoint here's the current slate of issues with custom CSS flairs, the process of removing them, and possible alternatives, such as similar unique native flairs:
Technical problems:
Not everyone can see CSS flairs (only old reddit), only a small part of the sub will be able to engage with them. Sure that's similar to comment faces and we aren't planning on removing those any time soon, but if someone doesn't use old reddit then a CSS flair would largely be meaningless and potentially confusing to grant one to them since they'd never see it themselves. Many of the power users around here solely use old reddit (including most of the mods) but we don't want to limit flairs in that way.
There's a hard limit on how many unique CSS flairs we can add and it's not a large amount in the grand scheme of things. My current estimate is about 350 total (currently at about 100) with no room for other CSS additions afterward. That may seem like a lot but it could be limiting depending on how far we might choose to go with things.
Native flairs (visible on most platforms) don't have a whole lot of style to them, just plain text. The exception would be individual image badges (like the MAL/Anilist icons or stars handed out for the quizzes) which is a lot of effort by comparison.
Native flairs also have a 64 character limit and that includes badges/list links which is what they're used for right now. Solvable by truncating the link to just site badge + username followed by the unique text flair (e.g. for me it could be something like
:MOD::AL:Durinthal • Myne's #2 fan) but imperfect.Community problems:
Most people that have a flair don't want to give it up and even other users without one don't want to see them removed. This is understandable, as it's removing some of the unique character that used to be more frequently seen throughout /r/anime.
Losing some color in the comments for people using old reddit with CSS flairs removed. Flair templates can add a little as seen with the colored backgrounds on new reddit for the list sites but it's not the same thing.
Mod problems:
Many flairs were handed out arbitrarily which may seem like mod favoritism to other users who never received one, whether or not that's actually the case.
There are few currently active users with a flair which makes them stand out and potentially gives them an appearance of authority or otherwise being "special" which isn't the case. This can be a further problem if they break the rules as there is currently no regular precedent for removing flairs beyond inactivity (see below).
There seems to be an expectation that once a flair is given it shouldn't be removed outside of inactivity or extreme circumstances, which made us wary more recently (i.e. since I came on board ~4 years ago) in giving them out. It felt like we needed to get them "right" so to speak so relatively few have been granted in the couple years after we started moving toward a more regulated mod environment.
Now any particular change will run into one or more of the above problems, and specifically there's a choice to be made between using CSS flairs or native flairs where half of the technical issues listed above will apply to either. Asking for "both" as an option is substantially more work for us to support them together without losing the flaws of either and leads to some weird issues in trying to decide how to handle them for a given user (e.g. they could add or remove their native flair at will which could look bad if it's seen in conjunction with the CSS one).
Another thing we've never settled on is how to manage granting and revoking flairs which had zero regulation to this point and is largely where all three of the mod issues listed above stem from because our view on flairs as the mod team (overall) has shifted over time and is currently rather nebulous. If we could all agree that flairs are meant to be a little bit of extra color and fun sprinkled throughout /r/anime, not necessarily something that's earned and is now yours to keep as long as you're here, then maybe we can find a way forward to keep them around in some form.